The Young Man and the World Part 23

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 ill.u.s.trates my point so well that I appropriate it. In other words, your permanent att.i.tude, your continuous impression on the world, is one of your a.s.sets, 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 att.i.tude 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 acc.u.mulate, is one kind of an a.s.set; but the respect of men, the confidence of a community, is an a.s.set 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 n.o.body 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-cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 enn.o.blin' 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 ap.r.o.n-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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sociation 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 att.i.tude toward G.o.d 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 const.i.tution 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 G.o.d."

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 att.i.tude 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.

X

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE NATION

You are an American--remember that; and be proud of it, too. It is the n.o.blest circ.u.mstance in your life. Think what it means: The greatest people on earth--to be one of that people; the most powerful Nation--to be a member of that Nation; the best and freest inst.i.tutions among men--to live under those inst.i.tutions; the richest land under any flag--to know that land for your country and your home; the most fortunate period in human history--to live in such a day.

This is a dim and narrow outline of what it means to be an American.

Glory in that fact, therefore. Your very being cannot be too highly charged with Americanism. And do not be afraid to a.s.sert it.

The world forgives the egotist of patriotism. "We Germans fear G.o.d, and nothing else!" thundered Bismarck on closing his greatest speech before the Reichstag. It was the very frenzy of pride of race and country. Yet even his enemies applauded. If it was narrow, it was grandly patriotic. It was more: it appealed to the elemental in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Love of one's own is a universal and deathless pa.s.sion, common not only to human beings but also shared by all animate creation. Be an American, therefore, to the uttermost limit of consciousness and feeling. Thank G.o.d each day that your lot has fallen beneath the Stars and Stripes. It is a sacred flag. There is only one holier emblem known to man.

You have American conditions about you every day, and so their value and advantage become commonplace and unnoted. To any young man afflicted with the disease of thinking life hard and burdens heavy in this Republic, I know of no remedy equal to a trip abroad. You will find things to admire in France; you will applaud things in Germany; you will see much in other lands that suggests modifications of American methods.

But after you have traveled all over the earth; after you have seen Teutonic system made ten times more perfect in j.a.pan and Slav patience outdone in China--in short, after you circle the globe and sojourn among its peoples, you will come home a living, breathing, thinking Fourth of July.

Of course I do not mean that we are perfect--we are still crude; or that we have not made mistakes--we have rioted in error; or that other nations cannot teach us something--we can learn greatly from them, and we will. But this is the point as it affects you, young man: Among all the uncounted millions of human beings on this earth, none has the opportunities to make the most of life that the young American has.

No government now existing or described by history gives you such liberty of effort, or scatters before and around you such chances. No soil now occupied by any separate nation is so bountiful or resourceful. No other people have our American unwearied spirit of youth. The composite brain of no other nation yeasts in thought and ideas like the combined intellect of the American millions.