Architects of Fate Part 32

The gladiators who were trained to tight in the Coliseum were compelled to practice the most graceful postures of falling and the finest att.i.tudes to a.s.sume in dying, in case they were vanquished. They were obliged to eat food which would make the blood thick in order that they should not die quickly when wounded, thus giving the spectators prolonged gratification by the spectacle of their agonies. Each had to take this oath: "We swear that we will suffer ourselves to be bound, scourged, burned, or killed by the sword, or whatever Eumolpus ordains, and thus, like freeborn gladiators, we religiously devote both our souls and our bodies to our master." They were trained to exercise sublime self-control even when dying a cruel death.

The American Minister at St. Petersburg was summoned one morning to save a young, dissolute, reckless American youth, Poe, from the penalties incurred in a drunken debauch. By the Minister's aid young Poe returned to the United States. Not long after this the author of the best story and poem competed for in the "Baltimore Visitor" was sent for, and behold, the youth who had taken both prizes was that same dissolute, reckless, penniless, orphan youth, who had been arrested in St. Petersburg,--pale, ragged, with no stockings, and with his threadbare but well brushed coat b.u.t.toned to the chin to conceal the lack of a shirt. Young Poe took fresh courage and resolution, and for a while showed that he was superior to the appet.i.te which was striving to drag him down. But, alas, that fatal bottle! his mind was stored with riches, yet he died in moral poverty. This was a soldier's epitaph:--

"Here lies a soldier whom all must applaud, Who fought many battles at home and abroad!

But the hottest engagement he ever was in, Was the conquest of self, in the battle of sin."

In 1860, when a committee visited Abraham Lincoln at his home in Springfield, Ill., to notify him of his nomination as President, he ordered a pitcher of water and gla.s.ses, "that they might drink each other's health in the best beverage G.o.d ever gave to man." "Let us,"

he continued, "make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the temperance pledge as for husbands to wear their wives' bonnets in church, and instances will be as rare in one case as the other."

Burns exercised no control over his appet.i.tes, but gave them the rein:--

"Thus thoughtless follies laid him low And stained his name."

"The first and best of victories," says Plato, "is for a man to conquer himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful and vile."

Self-control is at the root of all the virtues. Let a man yield to his impulses and pa.s.sions, and from that moment he gives up his moral freedom.

"Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable," says Walter Scott, "and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer."

Stonewall Jackson, early in life, determined to conquer every weakness he had, physical, mental, and moral. He held all of his powers with a firm hand. To his great self-discipline and self-mastery he owed his success. So determined was he to harden himself to the weather that he could not be induced to wear an overcoat in winter. "I will not give in to the cold," he said. For a year, on account of dyspepsia, he lived on b.u.t.termilk and stale bread, and wore a wet shirt next his body because his doctor advised it, although everybody else ridiculed the idea. This was while he was professor at the Virginia Military Inst.i.tute. His doctor advised him to retire at nine o'clock; and, no matter where he was, or who was present, he always sought his bed on the minute. He adhered rigidly through life to this stern system of discipline. Such self-training, such self-conquest, gives one great power over others. It is equal to genius itself.

It is a good plan to form the habit of ranking our various qualities, marking our strongest point one hundred and all the others in proportion, in order to make the lowest mark more apparent, and enabling us to try to raise or strengthen it. A man's industry, for example, may be his strongest point, one hundred, his physical courage may be fifty; his moral courage, seventy-five; his temper, twenty-five; with but ten for self-control,--which, if he has strong appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions, will be likely to be the rock on which he will split. He should strive in every way to raise it from one of the weakest qualities to one of the strongest. It would take but two or three minutes a day to rank ourselves in such a table by noting the exercise of each faculty for the day. If you have worked hard and faithfully, mark industry one hundred. If you have lost your temper, and, in consequence, lost your self-control, and made a fool of yourself, indicate it by a low mark. This will be an incentive to try to raise it the next day. If you have been irritable, indicate it by a corresponding mark, and redeem yourself on the morrow. If you have been cowardly where you should have been brave, hesitating where you should have shown decision, false where you should have been true, foolish where you should have been wise, tardy where you should have been prompt; if you have prevaricated where you should have told the exact truth; if you have taken the advantage where you should have been fair, have been unjust where you should have been just, impatient where you should have been patient, cross where you should have been cheerful, so indicate by your marks. You will find this a great aid to character building.

It is a subtle and profound remark of Hegel's that the riddle which the Sphinx, the Egyptian symbol of the mysteriousness of Nature, propounds to Oedipus is only another way of expressing the command of the Delphic oracle, "Know thyself." And when the answer is given the Sphinx casts herself down from her rock. When man knows himself, the mysteriousness of Nature and her terrors vanish.

The command by the ancient oracle at Delphos is of eternal significance. Add to it its natural complement--Help thyself--and the path to success is open to those who obey.

_Guard your weak point_. Moral contagion borrows fully half its strength from the weakness of its victims. Have you a hot, pa.s.sionate temper? If so, a moment's outbreak, like a rat-hole in a dam, may flood all the work of years. One angry word sometimes raises a storm that time itself cannot allay. A single angry word has lost many a friend.

A Quaker was asked by a merchant whom he had conquered by his patience how he had been able to bear the other's abuse, and replied: "Friend, I will tell thee. I was naturally as hot and violent as thou art. I observed that men in a pa.s.sion always speak loud, and I thought if I could control my voice I should repress my pa.s.sion. I have therefore made it a rule never to let my voice rise above a certain key, and by a careful observance of this rule, I have, by the blessing of G.o.d, entirely mastered my natural tongue." Mr. Christmas of the Bank of England explains that the secret of his self-control under very trying circ.u.mstances was due to a rule learned from the great Pitt, never to lose his temper during banking hours from nine to three.

When Socrates found in himself any disposition to anger, he would check it by speaking low, in opposition to the motions of his displeasure.

If you are conscious of being in a pa.s.sion, keep your mouth shut, lest you increase it. Many a person has dropped dead in a rage. Fits of anger bring fits of disease. "Whom the G.o.ds would destroy they first make mad." "Keep cool," says Webster, "anger is not argument." "Be calm in arguing," says George Herbert, "for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy."

To be angry with a weak man is to prove that you are not strong yourself. "Anger," says Pythagoras, "begins with folly and ends with repentance." You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those which subdue him.

De Leon, a distinguished Spanish poet, after lying years in dungeons of the Inquisition, dreary, and alone, without light, for translating part of the Scriptures into his native tongue, was released and restored to his professorship. A great crowd thronged to hear his first lecture, out of curiosity to learn what he might say about his imprisonment.

But the great man merely resumed the lecture which had been so cruelly broken off five years before, just where he left it, with the words "Heri discebamus" (Yesterday we were teaching). What a lesson in this remarkable example of self-control for those who allow their tongues to jabber whatever happens to be uppermost in their minds!

Did you ever see a man receive a flagrant insult, and only grow a little pale, bite his quivering lip, and then reply quietly? Did you ever see a man in anguish stand as if carved out of solid rock, mastering himself? Have you not seen one bearing a hopeless daily trial remain silent and never tell the world what cankered his home peace? That is strength. "He who, with strong pa.s.sions, remains chaste; he who, keenly sensitive, with manly power of indignation in him, can be provoked, and yet restrain himself and forgive,--these are strong men, the spiritual heroes."

"You will be remembered only as the man who broke my nose," said young Michael Angelo to the man Torrigiano, who struck him in anger. What sublime self-control for a quick-tempered man!

"You ask whether it would not be manly to resent a great injury," said Eardley Wilmot: "I answer that it would be manly to resent it, but it would be G.o.dlike to forgive it."

That man has conquered his tongue who can allow the ribald jest or scurrilous word to die unspoken on his lips, and maintain an indignant silence amid reproaches and accusations and sneers and scoffs. "He is a fool who cannot be angry," says English, "but he is a wise man who will not."

Peter the Great made a law in 1722 that a n.o.bleman who should beat his slave should be regarded as insane, and a guardian appointed to look after his property and person. This great monarch once struck his gardener, who took to his bed and died. Peter, hearing of this, exclaimed with tears in his eyes, "Alas! I have civilized my own subjects; I have conquered other nations; yet have I not been able to civilize or conquer myself." The same monarch, when drunk, rushed upon Admiral Le Fort with a sword. Le Fort, with great self-possession, bared his breast to receive the stroke. This sobered Peter, and afterwards he asked the pardon of Le Fort. Peter said, "I am trying to reform my country, and I am not yet able to reform myself."

Self-conquest is man's last and greatest victory.

A medical authority of highest repute affirms that excessive labor, exposure to wet and cold, deprivation of sufficient quant.i.ties of necessary and wholesome food, habitual bad lodging, sloth and intemperance, are all deadly enemies to human life, but they are none of them so bad as violent and ungoverned pa.s.sion,--that men and women have frequently lived to an advanced age in spite of these, but that instances are very rare where people of irascible tempers live to extreme old age.

It was the self-discipline of a man who had never looked upon war until he was forty that enabled Oliver Cromwell to create an army which never fought without annihilating, yet which retired into the ranks of industry as soon as the government was established, each soldier being distinguished from his neighbors only by his superior diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pursuits of peace.

How sweet the serenity of habitual self-command! When does a man feel more a master of himself than when he has pa.s.sed through a sudden and severe provocation in silence or in undisturbed good humor?

Whether teaching the rules of an exact morality, answering his corrupt judges, receiving sentence of death, or swallowing the poison, Socrates was still calm, quiet, undisturbed, intrepid.

It is a great thing to have brains, but it is vastly greater to be able to command them. The Duke of Wellington had great power over himself, although his natural temper was extremely irritable. He remained at the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond's ball till about three o'clock on the morning of the 16th of June, 1815, "showing himself very cheerful," although he knew that a desperate battle was awaiting him. On the field of Waterloo he gave his orders at the most critical moments without the slightest excitement.

Napoleon, having made his arrangements for the terrible conflict of the next day (Jena and Auerstadt), retired to his tent about midnight, and calmly sat down to draw up a plan of study and discipline for Madame Campan's female school. "Keep cool, and you command everybody," says St. Just.

"He that would govern others first should be The master of himself,"

says Ma.s.singer.

He who has mastered himself, who is his own Caesar, will be stronger than his pa.s.sion, superior to circ.u.mstances, higher than his calling, greater than his speech. Self-control is the generalship which turns a mob of raw recruits into a disciplined army. The rough man has become the polished and dignified soldier, in other words, the man has got control of himself, and knows how to use himself. The human race is under constant drill. Our occupations, difficulties, obstacles, disappointments, if used aright, are the great schoolmasters which help us to possess ourselves. The man who is master of himself will not be a slave to drudgery, but will keep in advance of his work. He will not rob his family of that which is worth more than money or position; he will not be the slave of his occupation, not at the mercy of circ.u.mstances. His methods and system will enable him to accomplish wonders, and yet give him leisure for self-culture. The man who controls himself works to live rather than lives for work.

The man of great self-control, the man who thinks a great deal and says little, who is self-centred, well balanced, carries a thousand times more weight than the man of weak will, always wavering and undecided.

If a man lacks self-control he seems to lack everything. Without it he can have no patience, no power to govern himself, he can have no self-reliance, for he will always be at the mercy of his strongest pa.s.sion. If he lacks self-control, the very backbone, pith, and nerve of character are lacking also.

The discipline which is the main end in education is simply control acquired over one's mental faculties; without this discipline no man is a strong and accurate thinker. "Prove to me," says Mrs. Oliphant, "that you can control yourself, and I'll say you're an educated man; and, without this, all other education is good for next to nothing."

The wife of Socrates, Xanthippe, was a woman of a most fantastical and furious spirit. At one time, having vented all the reproaches upon Socrates her fury could suggest, he went out and sat before the door.

His calm and unconcerned behavior but irritated her so much the more; and, in the excess of her rage, she ran upstairs and emptied a vessel upon his head, at which he only laughed and said that "so much thunder must needs produce a shower." Alcibiades his friend, talking with him about his wife, told him he wondered how he could bear such an everlasting scold in the same house with him. He replied, "I have so accustomed myself to expect it, that it now offends me no more than the noise of carriages in the street."

How many men have in their chain of character one weak link. They may be weak in the link of truthfulness, politeness, trustworthiness, temper, chast.i.ty, temperance, courage, industry, or may have some other weakness which wrecks their success and thwarts a life's endeavor. He who would succeed must hold all his faculties under perfect control; they must be disciplined, drilled, until they obey the will.

Think of a young man just starting out in life to conquer the world being at the mercy of his own appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions! He cannot stand up and look the world in the face when he is the slave of what should be his own servants. He cannot lead who is led. There is nothing which gives certainty and direction to the life of a man who is not his own master. If he has mastered all but one appet.i.te, pa.s.sion, or weakness, he is still a slave; it is the weakest point that measures the strength of character.

Seneca, one of the greatest of the ancient philosophers, said that "we should every night call ourselves to account. What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what pa.s.sion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired?" and then he follows with the profound truth that "our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift." If you cannot at first control your anger, learn to control your tongue, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a hard master.

Five words cost Zacharias forty weeks' silence. There is many a man whose tongue might govern mult.i.tudes if he could only govern his tongue. Anger, like too much wine, hides us from ourselves, but exposes us to others.

General von Moltke, perhaps the greatest strategist of this century, had, as a foundation for his other talents, the power to "hold his tongue in seven languages." A young man went to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced, he talked so incessantly that Socrates asked for double fees. "Why charge me double?" asked the young fellow.

"Because," said the orator, "I must teach you two sciences: the one how to hold your tongue, the other how to speak." The first is the more difficult.

Half the actual trouble of life would be saved if people would remember that silence is golden, when they are irritated, vexed, or annoyed.

To feel provoked or exasperated at a trifle, when the nerves are exhausted, is, perhaps, natural to us in our imperfect state. But why put into the shape of speech the annoyance which, once uttered, is remembered; which may burn like a blistering wound, or rankle like a poisoned arrow? If a child be crying or a friend capricious, or a servant unreasonable, be careful what you say. Do not speak while you feel the impulse of anger, for you will be almost certain to say too much, to say more than your cooler judgment will approve, and to speak in a way that you will regret. Be silent until the "sweet by and by,"

when you will be calm, rested, and self-controlled.

"Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him."

"Silence," says Zimmerman, "is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy."