Albert J. Beveridge - The Young Man and the World

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_The_ YOUNG MAN _and_
THE WORLD

By

Albert J. Beveridge

D. Appleton and Company
New York
1905

COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

_Published October, 1905_

PREFACE

The chapters of this volume were, originally, papers published in _The
Saturday Evening Post_ of Philadelphia. The first paper on "The Young
Man and the World," which gives the title to the book, was written, at
the request of the editor of that magazine, as an addition to a series
of articles upon the Philippines and statesmen of contemporaneous
eminence.

This paper called for another, and each in its turn called for the one
that followed it. And so the series grew from day to day, largely out
of the suggestions of its readers--a sort of collaboration. A
considerable correspondence resulted, and requests were made that the
articles be collected in permanent form. This is the genesis of this
book. I hope it will do some good.

While addressed more directly to young men, these papers were yet
written for men on both sides the hill and on the crest thereof. I
would draw maturity and youth closer together. I would have the
sympathy between them ever fresh and vital. I would have them
understand one another and thus profit each by the strength of the
other.

The manner in which these papers were written created certain
repetitions. After careful consideration I have concluded to let them
remain. They are upon subjects of vital concern. Where it is necessary
to remember, it is better to be wearied than to forget. And these
papers were meant to be helpful. They are merely plain talks as of
friends conferring together.

ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE.

INDIANAPOLIS, _May 1, 1905._

CONTENTS

PAGE

I.--THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD 1

II.--THE OLD HOME 54

III.--THE COLLEGE? 83
1. The Young Man who Goes.
2. The Young Man who Cannot Go.

IV.--THE NEW HOME 152

V.--THE YOUNG LAWYER AND HIS BEGINNINGS 186

VI.--PUBLIC SPEAKING 217

VII.--THE YOUNG MAN AND THE PULPIT 246

VIII.--GREAT THINGS YET TO BE DONE 278

IX.--NEGATIVE FUNDAMENTALS 310

X.--THE YOUNG MAN AND THE NATION 334

XI.--THE WORLD AND THE YOUNG MAN 366

XII.--THE YOUNG MAN'S SECOND WIND; OR, FACING
THE WORLD AT FIFTY 387

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD

I

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE WORLD

Be honest with the world and the world will be honest with you. This
is the fundamental truth of all real prosperity and happiness. For the
purposes of every man's daily affairs, all other maxims are to this
central verity as the branches of a tree to its rooted trunk.

The world will be honest with you whether you are honest with it or
not. You cannot trick it--remember that. If you try it, the world will
punish you when it discovers your fraud. But be honest with the world
from nobler motives than prudence.

Prudence will not make you _be_ honest--it will only make you _act_
honest. And you must be honest.

I do not mean that lowest form of honesty which bids you keep your
hands clean of another's goods or money; I do not mean that you shall
not be a "grafter," to use the foul and sinister word which certain
base practices have recently compelled us to coin. Of course you will
be honest in a money sense.

But that is only the beginning; you must go farther in your dealings
with the world. You must be intellectually honest. Do not pretend to
be what you are not--no affectations, no simulations, no falsehoods
either of speech or thought, of conduct or attitude. Let truth abide
in the very heart of you.

"I take no stock in that man; he poses his face, he attitudinizes his
features. The man who tries to impress me by his countenance is
constitutionally false," said the editor of a powerful publication, in
commenting on a certain personage then somewhat in the public eye.

You see how important honesty is even in facial expression. I
emphasize this veracity of character because it is elemental. You may
have all the gifts and graces but if you have not this essential you
are bankrupt. Be honest to the bone. Be clean of blood as well as of
tongue.

Never try to create a deeper impression than Nature creates for you,
and that means never attempt to create any impression at all. For
example, never try to look wise. Many a front of gravity and weight
conceals an intellectual desolation. In Moscow you will find the exact
external counterpart of Tolstoi. It is said that it is difficult to
distinguish the philosopher from his double. Yet this duplicate in
appearance of the greatest of living writers is a cab driver without
even the brightness of the jehu.

Be what you are, therefore, and no more; yes, and no less--which is
equally important. In a word, start right. Be honest with yourself,
too. If you have started wrong, go back and start over again. But
don't change more than once. Some men never finish because they are
always beginning. Be careful how you choose and then stick to your
second choice. A poor claim steadily worked may be better than a good
one half developed. The man who makes too many starts seldom makes
anything else.

But don't pretend that you have a thousand dollars in bank when you
hold in your hands the statement of your overdraft. Face your account
with Nature like a man. For Nature is a generous, though remorseless,
financier, delivering you your just due and exacting the uttermost of
your debt. Also Nature renders you a daily accounting.

And, at the very beginning, Nature writes upon the tablet of your
inner consciousness an inventory of your strengths and of your
weaknesses, and lists there those tasks which you are best fitted to
perform--those tasks which Nature _meant_ you to perform. For Nature
put you here to _do something_; you were not born to be an ornament.

First, then, learn your limitations. Take time enough to think out
just what you _cannot_ do. This process of elimination will soon
reduce life's possibilities for you to a few things. Of these things
select the one which is nearest you, and, having selected it, put all
other loves from you.

It is a business maxim in my profession that "law is a jealous
mistress." It is very true, but it is not more true than it is that
every other calling in life is a jealous mistress. To every man _his_
task is the hardest, _his_ situation the most difficult.

By finding out one's limitations is not meant, of course, what society
will permit you to do, or what men will permit you to do, but what
Nature will permit you to do. You have no other master than Nature.
Nature's limitations only are the bounds of your success. So far as
your success is concerned, no man, no set of men, no society, not even
all the world of humanity, is your master; but Nature is. "We cannot,"
says Emerson, "bandy words with Nature, or deal with her as we deal
with persons."

"_Poeta nascitur, non fit_," is just as applicable to lawyers and
mechanics and engineers as to poets. More failures have been caused by
the old idea that a man may make himself what he will, than by any
single half-truth that has crept into our common speech and belief. A
man may make himself what he will within the limitations Nature has
set about him.

"When I was born,
From all the seas of strength
Fate filled a chalice,
Saying, This be thy portion, child,"

declares the Persian sage. But all that Hafiz means by that is that a
Paderewski shall not attempt blacksmithing, or a Rothschild try
cartooning or sculpture or watchmaking, or any man undertake that for
which Nature has not fitted him.

Do we not see instances every day of men made unhappy for life, and
their powers lost to the world by trying to do that for which they
have no aptitude? Parents obeying the attractive theory that any boy
can make himself what he pleases decide upon some ambitious career for
him without considering his natural abilities and efficiencies.
Usually some calling of clamorous conspicuity is selected.

Twenty years ago the law was the favorite avenue upon which fond
parents would thus set the feet of their offspring; the law, they
thought, would enable him better to "make his mark"--that is, to
parade up and down before the public eye and fill the public ear with
declamation. Even yet that profession has clientless members,
miserable in their hearts over their self-consciousness that they are
not lawyers and never can be lawyers, who would have been useful,
prosperous, and happy if they could have been permitted to be
architects or merchants or farmers or doctors or soldiers or sculptors
or editors or what not.

One of the cleverest of our present-day writers of fiction started out
to be a lawyer. But he could not keep his pen from paper nor restrain
that mysterious instrument from tracing sketches of character and
drawing pictures of human situations. Very well! He had the courage to
obey the call of his preferences; and to-day, instead of being an
unskillful attorney, he is noted and notable in the present-hour world
of letters.

Anthony Hope in England is another illustration precisely in point. On
the other hand, Erskine, who was intended by his parents for the army,
was destined by Nature for the bar. This master-advocate of all the
history of English jurisprudence felt it in his blood that he _must_
practise law; and so his sword rusted while he studied Blackstone.
Finally, he deserted the field for the forum, there to become the most
illustrious barrister the United Kingdom has produced.

I therefore emphasize the importance of finding out what you can _do_
best rather than what either you or your parents _wish_ you could do
best. For it seems to me that this is getting very close to the truth
of life. The thoughtless commonplace that "every boy may be President"
has worked mischief, sown unhappiness, and robbed humanity of useful
workers.

Every boy cannot be President, and, what is more, every boy ought not
to be. Let Edison remain in his laboratory and enrich mankind with his
wizard wisdom. England would have lost her great explorer if Drake had
tried to write plays; while Shakespeare would doubtless have been
sea-sick on the decks of the Golden Hind. Let Verdi compose, and charm
the universal heart with his witcheries of sound; let Cavour keep to
his statesmanship, that a dismembered people may again be made one.
Every man to his calling. "Let the shoemaker stick to his last," said
Appelles.

Ito might have led the Japanese armies to defeat--Oyama led them to
victory. But Ito created modern Japan, wrote its constitution and
introduced those methods which made Oyama's successes possible. Each
man succeeded because he chose to do what Nature fitted him to do.

Of course you may be fitted for more than one thing. Caesar could have
equaled if not surpassed Cicero in mere oratory had he not preferred
to find, in war and government, a fame more enduring. But, if you try
all things for which you may be equipped by Nature, you will so
scatter your energies through the delta of your aptitudes that your
very wealth and variety of gifts neutralizes them all. No. Pick out
one of the things you can do well and let the others go. A tree is
pruned on the same principle. Stick to one thing. Beware of your
versatilities.

Your life's work chosen give wing to your imagination. Behold yourself
preeminent in your field of effort. Dream of yourself as the best
civil engineer of your time, or the soundest banker or ablest
merchant. If you are a farmer fancy yourself the master of all the
secrets science is daily discovering in this most engaging of
occupations; picture yourself as the man who has accomplished most in
the realm of agriculture.

Set for yourself the ideal of perfection in your calling--being sure
that it is Nature's calling. Then let your dreams become beliefs; let
your imaginings develop into faith. Complete the process by resolving
to make that belief come true. Then go ahead and _make it come true_.
Keep your resolution bright. Never let it rust. Burnish it with
work--untiring, unhasting, unyielding work.

Work--that is the magic word. In these four letters all possibilities
are wrapped up. "Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened
unto you." Or let us paraphrase the sacred page and say--Work and you
will win. Work to your ideal. If you never reach it--and who can
achieve perfection?--you surely will approach it.

Do not be impatient of your progress. If, to your own measurement,
you seem to be moving slowly, remember that, to the observation of
your fellow men, you are making substantial and satisfactory advance
and, to the eye of your rivals, you are proceeding with unreasonable
speed.

Don't pay any attention to how _fast_ you are getting on but _go ahead
and get on_. Keep working. And work with all your might. How wise the
Bible is: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."
And keep on doing it--persist--persist--persist. Again the Bible:
"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before
kings." Do not fear hard knocks. They are no sign that you will not
finally win the battle. Indeed, ability to endure in silence is one of
the best evidences that you will finally prevail.

Yes, put yourself into your work--and put all of yourself into your
work. Having done that, be content with your effort--do not fret. If
all you do yields the fruit you hope for, do not fret while that fruit
is ripening. On the other hand, if your labor comes to nothing, still
do not fret. A like fate has fallen upon uncounted millions before you
and will come to unnumbered myriads after you. If you have done your
best you have done better than the man who has done more than you but
who has not done his best.

And so, whatever the outcome, start out with this rule and keep it to
the end. For nothing wastes your powers so much as apprehension. The
hardest work, if done with common sense, is after all a tonic. But
fear lest that work will not yield you as much as you wish is a sort
of irritating cocaine of character, numbing and deadening all of your
powers and at the same time lashing your mind and nerves with the
knotted thongs of unhappiness. Besides, fretting is so trivial, so
little, so commonplace. Fail if you must, but do not be contemptible.

He who worries not only poisons the very fountains of his own strength
but arouses in the world's attitude toward him a sort of sneering
pity. So the very first thing that I have to suggest to you is that
you should _be a man_ in all your doings and throughout your whole
career.

That is it--be a man; a great, strong, willing, kindly man--calm in
the glory of a fearless heart, serene in your trust and belief in God,
the Father of the world, and so sure of the justice of His providence
that you go about your daily business free from those silly cares
which corrode and ruin manhood itself.

Be a man--that is the first and the last rule of the greatest success
in life. For the greatest success in life does not mean dollars heaped
in bank-vaults nor volumes written, nor railroads built, nor laws
devised, nor armies led. No, the greatest success is none of these.
The supreme success is character.

Pay no attention to mere spiteful criticism, but seek, as for gold and
precious stones, the chastening advice of friends. Do not be offended
if your friends say an unpleasant thing of you. And here we are at the
Bible again: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of
an enemy are deceitful."

These recurrences to what those wise old Hebrews said make one feel
that one is committing a superfluity when one attempts to say anything
along the line of practical advice, since anything that any man can
say is nothing more than a very weak dilution of the concentrated
thought of the most acute minds of the greatest business people, the
most successful material people--yes, and the most idealistic
people--who ever lived, the ancient, the mysterious, the persistent
Jews.

This is saying much for the Hebrew blood and genius; but have not
these Jews given us our moral laws, our spiritual ideals, our sacred
faith? Not only the bankers of the world are they, but the formulators
of the rules of conduct between man and man, and of that adoring
attitude which the enlightened mind should always maintain toward the
All-Father. The Jews are the universal people.

If you like ethnology, study the Jews. Study the Germans, too. What
peoples they both are--utterly unlike, yet full of the inspiration of
thoughts and deeds and persistence. Persistence--there is a word of
might it will pay you to ponder over.

Persistence--"stick-to-it-ive-ness." It is a quality better than
genius. The Germans have that quality preeminently, and other
wholesome and masterful characteristics as well. They are domestic yet
warlike, industrial yet artistic, experts in commerce yet disciples of
science. Study the Germans!

Though you must not fear criticism, do not disregard it. You may find
a suggestion in it, and thus your enemy will become your counselor.
But applause! Fly from the desire for it as from pestilence. It will
weaken you infinitely. And to a strong man achievement is the only
applause of value--the making of his point.

Many years ago I heard this story of Bismarck. If it is not true, it
ought to be. And if it is not true specifically, it is true
abstractly. He had just returned from one of his notable diplomatic
victories at the beginning of his career; great crowds had assembled
for a speech.

Bismarck heard it all, but smoked and drank his beer and gave no sign.
His secretary rushed in with excitement, and said:

"You must go out and acknowledge the applause of the people, and make
a speech."

"And why," said Bismarck; "why do they want me to speak; why are they
applauding me?"

"Because of your great success in these negotiations," said the
secretary.

"Humph!" said Bismarck, "suppose I had failed?" and turned back to his
smoking and his beer.

Bismarck, you see, was too great for applause.

I have quoted the Bible so frequently that it suggests remarks upon
one of the great influences of life--the influence of books. Like
every other power, this should be exercised with judgment. Let us
indulge no immoderate expectations of the results of mere reading.
Reading is, at best, only second-hand information and inspiration. It
is not the number of books a man has read that makes him available in
the world of business.

What the world wants is power; how to get that is the question.

Books are one source of power; but, necessarily, books are artificial.
That is why we cannot dispense with teachers in our schools,
professors in our colleges, preachers in our pulpits, orators on the
political platform. There is no real way of teaching but by word of
mouth. There is no real instruction but experience.

You see that the German universities have come back to the lecture
method exclusively--or did they ever depart from it? And they know
what they are about, those profound old German scholars. They have
created scientific scholarship. They have made what we once thought
history absurd, and have rewritten the story of the world.

But all this is _obiter dicta_. The point is that they know the value
of books as a source of power and learning, and they know their
limitations, too. So does the public. Public speaking will never
decline. It is Nature's method of instruction. You will listen with
profit to a speech which you cannot drive your mind to read.

It would seem, therefore, that the largest wisdom dictates
conservatism in mere reading. Read, of course, and deeply, widely,
thoroughly. But let Discrimination select your books. Choose these
intellectual companions as carefully as you pick your personal
comrades. Read only "tonic books," as Goethe calls them. Yes, read,
and abundantly--but don't stop there. Don't imagine that books, of
themselves, will make you wise. Reading, alone, will not render you
effective.

Mingle with the people--I mean the common people. Talk with them. Do
not talk _to_ them but talk _with_ them, and get them to talk with
you. Who that has had the experience would exchange the wit and wisdom
of the "hands" at the "threshings," during the half hour of rest after
eating, for the studied smartness of the salon or even the
conversation of the learned? But think not to get this by going out to
them and saying, "Talk up now." The farm-hand, the railroad laborer,
the working man of every kind, does not wear his heart on his sleeve.

Mark the idioms in Shakespeare. He spoke the words and uttered the
thoughts of hostlers as well as of kings. Observe the common language
in the Bible. It is curious to note the number of the pithy
expressions daily appearing among us which are repetitions of what the
people were saying in the time of Isaiah.

All who love Robert Burns have their affection for him rooted in the
human quality of him; and Burns's oneness with the rest of us is
revealed by the earthiness of his words. They smell of home. They have
the fragrance of trees and soil. We know that they were not coined by
Burns the genius, but repeated from the mouths of plain men and women
by Burns the reporter. It is so with all literature that lives.

Mingle with the people, therefore; be one of them. Who are you that
you should not be one of them? Who is any one that he should not be
one of the people? Their common thought is necessarily higher and
better than the thought of any man. This is mathematical.

And the people, too, are young, eternally young. They are the source
of all power, not politically speaking now, but ethnically, even
commercially, speaking. The successful manager of any business will
tell you that he takes as careful an inventory of public opinion as he
does of the material items of his merchandise. A capable merchant told
me that he makes it a point to mingle with the crowds.

"Not," said he, "to hear what they have to say, for you catch only a
scrap or a sentence here and there; but to go up against them. Somehow
or other you get their drift that way. Anyhow I am conscious that this
helps me to understand what the people need and want. There is such a
thing as commercial instinct; and contact with the people keeps this
fresh and true."

We have come to that state of enlightenment where the people want to
know not only that they are getting the best goods or best service,
but that the business which supplies either is run all right. Who can
doubt that in the universal mind there is a question as to the moral
element in American business?

This is nothing but the composite conscience of the American people
demanding that American business shall not only be conducted ably, but
also that it shall be conducted honestly. It is a force which you must
take into account. It will be a glorious asset for you if you will pay
enough attention to it to understand it.

But you must mingle with the people yourself in order to comprehend
this source of power. Do not sit alone in your room and read about the
people; that is no way to learn about them.

Remember that no workable constitution was ever written exclusively by
scholars. Recall the ordinance for the government of Carolina devised
by the philosopher Locke. It failed; yet it reads well. Time and again
theorists with highest purpose and broadest book wisdom have
formulated laws for the good of mankind which would not work.

Most statutes that live and operate have had their origins among men
of the soil as well as men of the study. The point I am making is that
learning and accomplishments will do no good if you do not connect
them with the people.

Is not this why so many reformers retire disappointed--men and women
of finest excellencies of purpose and practical and fruitful
thought--they have insisted in projecting their reforms from office or
parlor upon the masses without knowing those masses? It is as
impossible for the wisest man to be a statesman by confining himself
to his study and his weighty volumes and his careful abstract
thinking, as it is to be a chemist by reading about chemistry.

The laboratory, the test-tube, the actual contact with the real
materials and forces in nature, are essential to the scientist of
matter. This is much more true of the art of government. No man ever
lived so wise that association with the millions would not enrich his
wisdom mightily. And thus, page after page, we might go on pointing
out the value of contact with the people, whom, after all, it ought to
be your highest purpose to serve in some way.

For in all your doings never forget that, build you ever so cunningly,
young man, you have builded in vain if the work of your hands has not
helped humanity. Every occupation, trade, business, employment has its
reason in service of the people.

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