Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




SELF HELP; WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF CONDUCT AND PERSEVERANCE




CHAPTER I--SELF-HELP--NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL



"The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the
individuals composing it."--J. S. Mill.

"We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men."--B.
Disraeli.


"Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim,
embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience.
The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the
individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the
true source of national vigour and strength.  Help from without is
often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably
invigorates.  Whatever is done FOR men or classes, to a certain
extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for
themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-
government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively
helpless.

Even the best institutions can give a man no active help.  Perhaps
the most they can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and
improve his individual condition.  But in all times men have been
prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be
secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct.
Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has
usually been much over-estimated.  To constitute the millionth part
of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or
five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can
exercise but little active influence upon any man's life and
character.  Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly
understood, that the function of Government is negative and
restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable
principally into protection--protection of life, liberty, and
property.  Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the
enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body,
at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however
stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident,
or the drunken sober.  Such reforms can only be effected by means
of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits,
rather than by greater rights.

The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the
reflex of the individuals composing it.  The Government that is
ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level,
as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be
dragged up.  In the order of nature, the collective character of a
nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and
government, as water finds its own level.  The noble people will be
nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.  Indeed all
experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State
depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the
character of its men.  For the nation is only an aggregate of
individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of
the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom
society is composed.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and
uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness,
selfishness, and vice.  What we are accustomed to decry as great
social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the
outgrowth of man's own perverted life; and though we may endeavour
to cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only
spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless
the conditions of personal life and character are radically
improved.  If this view be correct, then it follows that the
highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in
altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and
stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free
and independent individual action.

It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed
from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself
from within.  The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a
despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his
own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.  Nations who are thus
enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters or
of institutions; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that
liberty solely depends upon and consists in government, so long
will such changes, no matter at what cost they may be effected,
have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting of the
figures in a phantasmagoria.  The solid foundations of liberty must
rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure
guarantee for social security and national progress.  John Stuart
Mill truly observes that "even despotism does not produce its worst
effects so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever
crushes individuality IS despotism, by whatever name it be called."

Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning up.  Some
call for Caesars, others for Nationalities, and others for Acts of
Parliament.  We are to wait for Caesars, and when they are found,
"happy the people who recognise and follow them." {1}  This
doctrine shortly means, everything FOR the people, nothing BY
them,--a doctrine which, if taken as a guide, must, by destroying
the free conscience of a community, speedily prepare the way for
any form of despotism.  Caesarism is human idolatry in its worst
form--a worship of mere power, as degrading in its effects as the
worship of mere wealth would be.  A far healthier doctrine to
inculcate among the nations would be that of Self-Help; and so soon
as it is thoroughly understood and carried into action, Caesarism
will be no more.  The two principles are directly antagonistic; and
what Victor Hugo said of the Pen and the Sword alike applies to
them, "Ceci tuera cela."  [This will kill that.]

The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parliament is also a
prevalent superstition.  What William Dargan, one of Ireland's
truest patriots, said at the closing of the first Dublin Industrial
Exhibition, may well be quoted now.  "To tell the truth," he said,
"I never heard the word independence mentioned that my own country
and my own fellow townsmen did not occur to my mind.  I have heard
a great deal about the independence that we were to get from this,
that, and the other place, and of the great expectations we were to
have from persons from other countries coming amongst us.  Whilst I
value as much as any man the great advantages that must result to
us from that intercourse, I have always been deeply impressed with
the feeling that our industrial independence is dependent upon
ourselves.  I believe that with simple industry and careful
exactness in the utilization of our energies, we never had a fairer
chance nor a brighter prospect than the present.  We have made a
step, but perseverance is the great agent of success; and if we but
go on zealously, I believe in my conscience that in a short period
we shall arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal happiness,
and of equal independence, with that of any other people."

All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the
working of many generations of men.  Patient and persevering
labourers in all ranks and conditions of life, cultivators of the
soil and explorers of the mine, inventors and discoverers,
manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets, philosophers, and
politicians, all have contributed towards the grand result, one
generation building upon another's labours, and carrying them
forward to still higher stages.  This constant succession of noble
workers--the artisans of civilisation--has served to create order
out of chaos in industry, science, and art; and the living race has
thus, in the course of nature, become the inheritor of the rich
estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which
is placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only
unimpaired but improved, to our successors.

The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of
individuals, has in all times been a marked feature in the English
character, and furnishes the true measure of our power as a nation.
Rising above the heads of the mass, there were always to be found a
series of individuals distinguished beyond others, who commanded
the public homage.  But our progress has also been owing to
multitudes of smaller and less known men.  Though only the
generals' names may be remembered in the history of any great
campaign, it has been in a great measure through the individual
valour and heroism of the privates that victories have been won.
And life, too, is "a soldiers' battle,"--men in the ranks having in
all times been amongst the greatest of workers.  Many are the lives
of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced
civilisation and progress as the more fortunate Great whose names
are recorded in biography.  Even the humblest person, who sets
before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright
honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future
influence upon the well-being of his country; for his life and
character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and
propagate good example for all time to come.

Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which
produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of
others, and really constitutes the best practical education.
Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the merest beginnings of
culture in comparison with it.  Far more influential is the life-
education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind
counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-
houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men.  This is
that finishing instruction as members of society, which Schiller
designated "the education of the human race," consisting in action,
conduct, self-culture, self-control,--all that tends to discipline
a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties
and business of life,--a kind of education not to be learnt from
books, or acquired by any amount of mere literary training.  With
his usual weight of words Bacon observes, that "Studies teach not
their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them,
won by observation;" a remark that holds true of actual life, as
well as of the cultivation of the intellect itself.  For all
experience serves to illustrate and enforce the lesson, that a man
perfects himself by work more than by reading,--that it is life
rather than literature, action rather than study, and character
rather than biography, which tend perpetually to renovate mankind.

Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are nevertheless
most instructive and useful, as helps, guides, and incentives to
others.  Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels--
teaching high living, high thinking, and energetic action for their
own and the world's good.  The valuable examples which they furnish
of the power of self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working,
and steadfast integrity, issuing in the formation of truly noble
and manly character, exhibit in language not to be misunderstood,
what it is in the power of each to accomplish for himself; and
eloquently illustrate the efficacy of self-respect and self-
reliance in enabling men of even the humblest rank to work out for
themselves an honourable competency and a solid reputation.

Great men of science, literature, and art--apostles of great
thoughts and lords of the great heart--have belonged to no
exclusive class nor rank in life.  They have come alike from
colleges, workshops, and farmhouses,--from the huts of poor men and
the mansions of the rich.  Some of God's greatest apostles have
come from "the ranks."  The poorest have sometimes taken the
highest places; nor have difficulties apparently the most
insuperable proved obstacles in their way.  Those very
difficulties, in many instances, would ever seem to have been their
best helpers, by evoking their powers of labour and endurance, and
stimulating into life faculties which might otherwise have lain
dormant.  The instances of obstacles thus surmounted, and of
triumphs thus achieved, are indeed so numerous, as almost to
justify the proverb that "with Will one can do anything."  Take,
for instance, the remarkable fact, that from the barber's shop came
Jeremy Taylor, the most poetical of divines; Sir Richard Arkwright,
the inventor of the spinning-jenny and founder of the cotton
manufacture; Lord Tenterden, one of the most distinguished of Lord
Chief Justices; and Turner, the greatest among landscape painters.

No one knows to a certainty what Shakespeare was; but it is
unquestionable that he sprang from a humble rank.  His father was a
butcher and grazier; and Shakespeare himself is supposed to have
been in early life a woolcomber; whilst others aver that he was an
usher in a school and afterwards a scrivener's clerk.  He truly
seems to have been "not one, but all mankind's epitome."  For such
is the accuracy of his sea phrases that a naval writer alleges that
he must have been a sailor; whilst a clergyman infers, from
internal evidence in his writings, that he was probably a parson's
clerk; and a distinguished judge of horse-flesh insists that he
must have been a horse-dealer.  Shakespeare was certainly an actor,
and in the course of his life "played many parts," gathering his
wonderful stores of knowledge from a wide field of experience and
observation.  In any event, he must have been a close student and a
hard worker; and to this day his writings continue to exercise a
powerful influence on the formation of English character.

The common class of day labourers has given us Brindley the
engineer, Cook the navigator, and Burns the poet.  Masons and
bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson, who worked at the building of
Lincoln's Inn, with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket,
Edwards and Telford the engineers, Hugh Miller the geologist, and
Allan Cunningham the writer and sculptor; whilst among
distinguished carpenters we find the names of Inigo Jones the
architect, Harrison the chronometer-maker, John Hunter the
physiologist, Romney and Opie the painters, Professor Lee the
Orientalist, and John Gibson the sculptor.

From the weaver class have sprung Simson the mathematician, Bacon
the sculptor, the two Milners, Adam Walker, John Foster, Wilson the
ornithologist, Dr. Livingstone the missionary traveller, and
Tannahill the poet.  Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel
the great Admiral, Sturgeon the electrician, Samuel Drew the
essayist, Gifford the editor of the 'Quarterly Review,' Bloomfield
the poet, and William Carey the missionary; whilst Morrison,
another laborious missionary, was a maker of shoe-lasts.  Within
the last few years, a profound naturalist has been discovered in
the person of a shoemaker at Banff, named Thomas Edwards, who,
while maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted his leisure to
the study of natural science in all its branches, his researches in
connexion with the smaller crustaceae having been rewarded by the
discovery of a new species, to which the name of "Praniza
Edwardsii" has been given by naturalists.

Nor have tailors been undistinguished.  John Stow, the historian,
worked at the trade during some part of his life.  Jackson, the
painter, made clothes until he reached manhood.  The brave Sir John
Hawkswood, who so greatly distinguished himself at Poictiers, and
was knighted by Edward III. for his valour, was in early life
apprenticed to a London tailor.  Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom
at Vigo in 1702, belonged to the same calling.  He was working as a
tailor's apprentice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, when the
news flew through the village that a squadron of men-of-war was
sailing off the island.  He sprang from the shopboard, and ran down
with his comrades to the beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight.
The boy was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor; and
springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, gained the
admiral's ship, and was accepted as a volunteer.  Years after, he
returned to his native village full of honours, and dined off bacon
and eggs in the cottage where he had worked as an apprentice.  But
the greatest tailor of all is unquestionably Andrew Johnson, the
present President of the United States--a man of extraordinary
force of character and vigour of intellect.  In his great speech at
Washington, when describing himself as having begun his political
career as an alderman, and run through all the branches of the
legislature, a voice in the crowd cried, "From a tailor up."  It
was characteristic of Johnson to take the intended sarcasm in good
part, and even to turn it to account.  "Some gentleman says I have
been a tailor.  That does not disconcert me in the least; for when
I was a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and making
close fits; I was always punctual with my customers, and always did
good work."

Cardinal Wolsey, De Foe, Akenside, and Kirke White were the sons of
butchers; Bunyan was a tinker, and Joseph Lancaster a basket-maker.
Among the great names identified with the invention of the steam-
engine are those of Newcomen, Watt, and Stephenson; the first a
blacksmith, the second a maker of mathematical instruments, and the
third an engine-fireman.  Huntingdon the preacher was originally a
coalheaver, and Bewick, the father of wood-engraving, a coalminer.
Dodsley was a footman, and Holcroft a groom.  Baffin the navigator
began his seafaring career as a man before the mast, and Sir
Cloudesley Shovel as a cabin-boy.  Herschel played the oboe in a
military band.  Chantrey was a journeyman carver, Etty a journeyman
printer, and Sir Thomas Lawrence the son of a tavern-keeper.
Michael Faraday, the son of a blacksmith, was in early life
apprenticed to a bookbinder, and worked at that trade until he
reached his twenty-second year:  he now occupies the very first
rank as a philosopher, excelling even his master, Sir Humphry Davy,
in the art of lucidly expounding the most difficult and abstruse
points in natural science.

Among those who have given the greatest impulse to the sublime
science of astronomy, we find Copernicus, the son of a Polish
baker; Kepler, the son of a German public-house keeper, and himself
the "garcon de cabaret;" d'Alembert, a foundling picked up one
winter's night on the steps of the church of St. Jean le Rond at
Paris, and brought up by the wife of a glazier; and Newton and
Laplace, the one the son of a small freeholder near Grantham, the
other the son of a poor peasant of Beaumont-en-Auge, near Honfleur.
Notwithstanding their comparatively adverse circumstances in early
life, these distinguished men achieved a solid and enduring
reputation by the exercise of their genius, which all the wealth in
the world could not have purchased.  The very possession of wealth
might indeed have proved an obstacle greater even than the humble
means to which they were born.  The father of Lagrange, the
astronomer and mathematician, held the office of Treasurer of War
at Turin; but having ruined himself by speculations, his family
were reduced to comparative poverty.  To this circumstance Lagrange
was in after life accustomed partly to attribute his own fame and
happiness.  "Had I been rich," said he, "I should probably not have
become a mathematician."

The sons of clergymen and ministers of religion generally, have
particularly distinguished themselves in our country's history.
Amongst them we find the names of Drake and Nelson, celebrated in
naval heroism; of Wollaston, Young, Playfair, and Bell, in science;
of Wren, Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, in art; of Thurlow and
Campbell, in law; and of Addison, Thomson, Goldsmith, Coleridge,
and Tennyson, in literature.  Lord Hardinge, Colonel Edwardes, and
Major Hodson, so honourably known in Indian warfare, were also the
sons of clergymen.  Indeed, the empire of England in India was won
and held chiefly by men of the middle class--such as Clive, Warren
Hastings, and their successors--men for the most part bred in
factories and trained to habits of business.

Among the sons of attorneys we find Edmund Burke, Smeaton the
engineer, Scott and Wordsworth, and Lords Somers, Hardwick, and
Dunning.  Sir William Blackstone was the posthumous son of a silk-
mercer.  Lord Gifford's father was a grocer at Dover; Lord Denman's
a physician; judge Talfourd's a country brewer; and Lord Chief
Baron Pollock's a celebrated saddler at Charing Cross.  Layard, the
discoverer of the monuments of Nineveh, was an articled clerk in a
London solicitor's office; and Sir William Armstrong, the inventor
of hydraulic machinery and of the Armstrong ordnance, was also
trained to the law and practised for some time as an attorney.
Milton was the son of a London scrivener, and Pope and Southey were
the sons of linendrapers.  Professor Wilson was the son of a
Paisley manufacturer, and Lord Macaulay of an African merchant.
Keats was a druggist, and Sir Humphry Davy a country apothecary's
apprentice.  Speaking of himself, Davy once said, "What I am I have
made myself:  I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of
heart."  Richard Owen, the Newton of Natural History, began life as
a midshipman, and did not enter upon the line of scientific
research in which he has since become so distinguished, until
comparatively late in life.  He laid the foundations of his great
knowledge while occupied in cataloguing the magnificent museum
accumulated by the industry of John Hunter, a work which occupied
him at the College of Surgeons during a period of about ten years.

Foreign not less than English biography abounds in illustrations of
men who have glorified the lot of poverty by their labours and
their genius.  In Art we find Claude, the son of a pastrycook;
Geefs, of a baker; Leopold Robert, of a watchmaker; and Haydn, of a
wheelwright; whilst Daguerre was a scene-painter at the Opera.  The
father of Gregory VII. was a carpenter; of Sextus V., a shepherd;
and of Adrian VI., a poor bargeman.  When a boy, Adrian, unable to
pay for a light by which to study, was accustomed to prepare his
lessons by the light of the lamps in the streets and the church
porches, exhibiting a degree of patience and industry which were
the certain forerunners of his future distinction.  Of like humble
origin were Hauy, the mineralogist, who was the son of a weaver of
Saint-Just; Hautefeuille, the mechanician, of a baker at Orleans;
Joseph Fourier, the mathematician, of a tailor at Auxerre; Durand,
the architect, of a Paris shoemaker; and Gesner, the naturalist, of
a skinner or worker in hides, at Zurich.  This last began his
career under all the disadvantages attendant on poverty, sickness,
and domestic calamity; none of which, however, were sufficient to
damp his courage or hinder his progress.  His life was indeed an
eminent illustration of the truth of the saying, that those who
have most to do and are willing to work, will find the most time.
Pierre Ramus was another man of like character.  He was the son of
poor parents in Picardy, and when a boy was employed to tend sheep.
But not liking the occupation he ran away to Paris.  After
encountering much misery, he succeeded in entering the College of
Navarre as a servant.  The situation, however, opened for him the
road to learning, and he shortly became one of the most
distinguished men of his time.

The chemist Vauquelin was the son of a peasant of Saint-Andre-
d'Herbetot, in the Calvados.  When a boy at school, though poorly
clad, he was full of bright intelligence; and the master, who
taught him to read and write, when praising him for his diligence,
used to say, "Go on, my boy; work, study, Colin, and one day you
will go as well dressed as the parish churchwarden!"  A country
apothecary who visited the school, admired the robust boy's arms,
and offered to take him into his laboratory to pound his drugs, to
which Vauquelin assented, in the hope of being able to continue his
lessons.  But the apothecary would not permit him to spend any part
of his time in learning; and on ascertaining this, the youth
immediately determined to quit his service.  He therefore left
Saint-Andre and took the road for Paris with his havresac on his
back.  Arrived there, he searched for a place as apothecary's boy,
but could not find one.  Worn out by fatigue and destitution,
Vauquelin fell ill, and in that state was taken to the hospital,
where he thought he should die.  But better things were in store
for the poor boy.  He recovered, and again proceeded in his search
of employment, which he at length found with an apothecary.
Shortly after, he became known to Fourcroy the eminent chemist, who
was so pleased with the youth that he made him his private
secretary; and many years after, on the death of that great
philosopher, Vauquelin succeeded him as Professor of Chemistry.
Finally, in 1829, the electors of the district of Calvados
appointed him their representative in the Chamber of Deputies, and
he re-entered in triumph the village which he had left so many
years before, so poor and so obscure.

England has no parallel instances to show, of promotions from the
ranks of the army to the highest military offices; which have been
so common in France since the first Revolution.  "La carriere
ouverte aux talents" has there received many striking
illustrations, which would doubtless be matched among ourselves
were the road to promotion as open.  Hoche, Humbert, and Pichegru,
began their respective careers as private soldiers.  Hoche, while
in the King's army, was accustomed to embroider waistcoats to
enable him to earn money wherewith to purchase books on military
science.  Humbert was a scapegrace when a youth; at sixteen he ran
away from home, and was by turns servant to a tradesman at Nancy, a
workman at Lyons, and a hawker of rabbit skins.  In 1792, he
enlisted as a volunteer; and in a year he was general of brigade.
Kleber, Lefevre, Suchet, Victor, Lannes, Soult, Massena, St. Cyr,
D'Erlon, Murat, Augereau, Bessieres, and Ney, all rose from the
ranks.  In some cases promotion was rapid, in others it was slow.
Saint Cyr, the son of a tanner of Toul, began life as an actor,
after which he enlisted in the Chasseurs, and was promoted to a
captaincy within a year.  Victor, Duc de Belluno, enlisted in the
Artillery in 1781:  during the events preceding the Revolution he
was discharged; but immediately on the outbreak of war he re-
enlisted, and in the course of a few months his intrepidity and
ability secured his promotion as Adjutant-Major and chief of
battalion.  Murat, "le beau sabreur," was the son of a village
innkeeper in Perigord, where he looked after the horses.  He first
enlisted in a regiment of Chasseurs, from which he was dismissed
for insubordination:  but again enlisting, he shortly rose to the
rank of Colonel.  Ney enlisted at eighteen in a hussar regiment,
and gradually advanced step by step:  Kleber soon discovered his
merits, surnaming him "The Indefatigable," and promoted him to be
Adjutant-General when only twenty-five.  On the other hand, Soult
{2} was six years from the date of his enlistment before he reached
the rank of sergeant.  But Soult's advancement was rapid compared
with that of Massena, who served for fourteen years before he was
made sergeant; and though he afterwards rose successively, step by
step, to the grades of Colonel, General of Division, and Marshal,
he declared that the post of sergeant was the step which of all
others had cost him the most labour to win.  Similar promotions
from the ranks, in the French army, have continued down to our own
day.  Changarnier entered the King's bodyguard as a private in
1815.  Marshal Bugeaud served four years in the ranks, after which
he was made an officer.  Marshal Randon, the present French
Minister of War, began his military career as a drummer boy; and in
the portrait of him in the gallery at Versailles, his hand rests
upon a drum-head, the picture being thus painted at his own
request.  Instances such as these inspire French soldiers with
enthusiasm for their service, as each private feels that he may
possibly carry the baton of a marshal in his knapsack.

The instances of men, in this and other countries, who, by dint of
persevering application and energy, have raised themselves from the
humblest ranks of industry to eminent positions of usefulness and
influence in society, are indeed so numerous that they have long
ceased to be regarded as exceptional.  Looking at some of the more
remarkable, it might almost be said that early encounter with
difficulty and adverse circumstances was the necessary and
indispensable condition of success.  The British House of Commons
has always contained a considerable number of such self-raised men-
-fitting representatives of the industrial character of the people;
and it is to the credit of our Legislature that they have been
welcomed and honoured there.  When the late Joseph Brotherton,
member for Salford, in the course of the discussion on the Ten
Hours Bill, detailed with true pathos the hardships and fatigues to
which he had been subjected when working as a factory boy in a
cotton mill, and described the resolution which he had then formed,
that if ever it was in his power he would endeavour to ameliorate
the condition of that class, Sir James Graham rose immediately
after him, and declared, amidst the cheers of the House, that he
did not before know that Mr. Brotherton's origin had been so
humble, but that it rendered him more proud than he had ever before
been of the House of Commons, to think that a person risen from
that condition should be able to sit side by side, on equal terms,
with the hereditary gentry of the land.

The late Mr. Fox, member for Oldham, was accustomed to introduce
his recollections of past times with the words, "when I was working
as a weaver boy at Norwich;" and there are other members of
parliament, still living, whose origin has been equally humble.
Mr. Lindsay, the well-known ship owner, until recently member for
Sunderland, once told the simple story of his life to the electors
of Weymouth, in answer to an attack made upon him by his political
opponents.  He had been left an orphan at fourteen, and when he
left Glasgow for Liverpool to push his way in the world, not being
able to pay the usual fare, the captain of the steamer agreed to
take his labour in exchange, and the boy worked his passage by
trimming the coals in the coal hole.  At Liverpool he remained for
seven weeks before he could obtain employment, during which time he
lived in sheds and fared hardly; until at last he found shelter on
board a West Indiaman.  He entered as a boy, and before he was
nineteen, by steady good conduct he had risen to the command of a
ship.  At twenty-three he retired from the sea, and settled on
shore, after which his progress was rapid "he had prospered," he
said, "by steady industry, by constant work, and by ever keeping in
view the great principle of doing to others as you would be done
by."

The career of Mr. William Jackson, of Birkenhead, the present
member for North Derbyshire, bears considerable resemblance to that
of Mr. Lindsay.  His father, a surgeon at Lancaster, died, leaving
a family of eleven children, of whom William Jackson was the
seventh son.  The elder boys had been well educated while the
father lived, but at his death the younger members had to shift for
themselves.  William, when under twelve years old, was taken from
school, and put to hard work at a ship's side from six in the
morning till nine at night.  His master falling ill, the boy was
taken into the counting-house, where he had more leisure.  This
gave him an opportunity of reading, and having obtained access to a
set of the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' he read the volumes through
from A to Z, partly by day, but chiefly at night.  He afterwards
put himself to a trade, was diligent, and succeeded in it.  Now he
has ships sailing on almost every sea, and holds commercial
relations with nearly every country on the globe.

Among like men of the same class may be ranked the late Richard
Cobden, whose start in life was equally humble.  The son of a small
farmer at Midhurst in Sussex, he was sent at an early age to London
and employed as a boy in a warehouse in the City.  He was diligent,
well conducted, and eager for information.  His master, a man of
the old school, warned him against too much reading; but the boy
went on in his own course, storing his mind with the wealth found
in books.  He was promoted from one position of trust to another--
became a traveller for his house--secured a large connection, and
eventually started in business as a calico printer at Manchester.
Taking an interest in public questions, more especially in popular
education, his attention was gradually drawn to the subject of the
Corn Laws, to the repeal of which he may be said to have devoted
his fortune and his life.  It may be mentioned as a curious fact
that the first speech he delivered in public was a total failure.
But he had great perseverance, application, and energy; and with
persistency and practice, he became at length one of the most
persuasive and effective of public speakers, extorting the
disinterested eulogy of even Sir Robert Peel himself.  M. Drouyn de
Lhuys, the French Ambassador, has eloquently said of Mr. Cobden,
that he was "a living proof of what merit, perseverance, and labour
can accomplish; one of the most complete examples of those men who,
sprung from the humblest ranks of society, raise themselves to the
highest rank in public estimation by the effect of their own worth
and of their personal services; finally, one of the rarest examples
of the solid qualities inherent in the English character."

In all these cases, strenuous individual application was the price
paid for distinction; excellence of any sort being invariably
placed beyond the reach of indolence.  It is the diligent hand and
head alone that maketh rich--in self-culture, growth in wisdom, and
in business.  Even when men are born to wealth and high social
position, any solid reputation which they may individually achieve
can only be attained by energetic application; for though an
inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge
and wisdom cannot.  The wealthy man may pay others for doing his
work for him, but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him
by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture.  Indeed, the
doctrine that excellence in any pursuit is only to be achieved by
laborious application, holds as true in the case of the man of
wealth as in that of Drew and Gifford, whose only school was a
cobbler's stall, or Hugh Miller, whose only college was a Cromarty
stone quarry.

Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for man's
highest culture, else had not the world been so largely indebted in
all times to those who have sprung from the humbler ranks.  An easy
and luxurious existence does not train men to effort or encounter
with difficulty; nor does it awaken that consciousness of power
which is so necessary for energetic and effective action in life.
Indeed, so far from poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous
self-help, be converted even into a blessing; rousing a man to that
struggle with the world in which, though some may purchase ease by
degradation, the right-minded and true-hearted find strength,
confidence, and triumph.  Bacon says, "Men seem neither to
understand their riches nor their strength:  of the former they
believe greater things than they should; of the latter much less.
Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his
own cistern, and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn and labour
truly to get his living, and carefully to expend the good things
committed to his trust."

Riches are so great a temptation to ease and self-indulgence, to
which men are by nature prone, that the glory is all the greater of
those who, born to ample fortunes, nevertheless take an active part
in the work of their generation--who "scorn delights and live
laborious days."  It is to the honour of the wealthier ranks in
this country that they are not idlers; for they do their fair share
of the work of the state, and usually take more than their fair
share of its dangers.  It was a fine thing said of a subaltern
officer in the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging alone
through mud and mire by the side of his regiment, "There goes
15,000l. a year!" and in our own day, the bleak slopes of
Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the
like noble self-denial and devotion on the part of our gentler
classes; many a gallant and noble fellow, of rank and estate,
having risked his life, or lost it, in one or other of those fields
of action, in the service of his country.

Nor have the wealthier classes been undistinguished in the more
peaceful pursuits of philosophy and science.  Take, for instance,
the great names of Bacon, the father of modern philosophy, and of
Worcester, Boyle, Cavendish, Talbot, and Rosse, in science.  The
last named may be regarded as the great mechanic of the peerage; a
man who, if he had not been born a peer, would probably have taken
the highest rank as an inventor.  So thorough is his knowledge of
smith-work that he is said to have been pressed on one occasion to
accept the foremanship of a large workshop, by a manufacturer to
whom his rank was unknown.  The great Rosse telescope, of his own
fabrication, is certainly the most extraordinary instrument of the
kind that has yet been constructed.

But it is principally in the departments of politics and literature
that we find the most energetic labourers amongst our higher
classes.  Success in these lines of action, as in all others, can
only be achieved through industry, practice, and study; and the
great Minister, or parliamentary leader, must necessarily be
amongst the very hardest of workers.  Such was Palmerston; and such
are Derby and Russell, Disraeli and Gladstone.  These men have had
the benefit of no Ten Hours Bill, but have often, during the busy
season of Parliament, worked "double shift," almost day and night.
One of the most illustrious of such workers in modern times was
unquestionably the late Sir Robert Peel.  He possessed in an
extraordinary degree the power of continuous intellectual labour,
nor did he spare himself.  His career, indeed, presented a
remarkable example of how much a man of comparatively moderate
powers can accomplish by means of assiduous application and
indefatigable industry.  During the forty years that he held a seat
in Parliament, his labours were prodigious.  He was a most
conscientious man, and whatever he undertook to do, he did
thoroughly.  All his speeches bear evidence of his careful study of
everything that had been spoken or written on the subject under
consideration.  He was elaborate almost to excess; and spared no
pains to adapt himself to the various capacities of his audience.
Withal, he possessed much practical sagacity, great strength of
purpose, and power to direct the issues of action with steady hand
and eye.  In one respect he surpassed most men:  his principles
broadened and enlarged with time; and age, instead of contracting,
only served to mellow and ripen his nature.  To the last he
continued open to the reception of new views, and, though many
thought him cautious to excess, he did not allow himself to fall
into that indiscriminating admiration of the past, which is the
palsy of many minds similarly educated, and renders the old age of
many nothing but a pity.

The indefatigable industry of Lord Brougham has become almost
proverbial.  His public labours have extended over a period of
upwards of sixty years, during which he has ranged over many
fields--of law, literature, politics, and science,--and achieved
distinction in them all.  How he contrived it, has been to many a
mystery.  Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was requested to undertake
some new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no time;
"but," he added, "go with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to
have time for everything."  The secret of it was, that he never
left a minute unemployed; withal he possessed a constitution of
iron.  When arrived at an age at which most men would have retired
from the world to enjoy their hard-earned leisure, perhaps to doze
away their time in an easy chair, Lord Brougham commenced and
prosecuted a series of elaborate investigations as to the laws of
Light, and he submitted the results to the most scientific
audiences that Paris and London could muster.  About the same time,
he was passing through the press his admirable sketches of the 'Men
of Science and Literature of the Reign of George III.,' and taking
his full share of the law business and the political discussions in
the House of Lords.  Sydney Smith once recommended him to confine
himself to only the transaction of so much business as three strong
men could get through.  But such was Brougham's love of work--long
become a habit--that no amount of application seems to have been
too great for him; and such was his love of excellence, that it has
been said of him that if his station in life had been only that of
a shoe-black, he would never have rested satisfied until he had
become the best shoe-black in England.

Another hard-working man of the same class is Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.
Few writers have done more, or achieved higher distinction in
various walks--as a novelist, poet, dramatist, historian, essayist,
orator, and politician.  He has worked his way step by step,
disdainful of ease, and animated throughout by the ardent desire to
excel.  On the score of mere industry, there are few living English
writers who have written so much, and none that have produced so
much of high quality.  The industry of Bulwer is entitled to all
the greater praise that it has been entirely self-imposed.  To
hunt, and shoot, and live at ease,--to frequent the clubs and enjoy
the opera, with the variety of London visiting and sight-seeing
during the "season," and then off to the country mansion, with its
well-stocked preserves, and its thousand delightful out-door
pleasures,--to travel abroad, to Paris, Vienna, or Rome,--all this
is excessively attractive to a lover of pleasure and a man of
fortune, and by no means calculated to make him voluntarily
undertake continuous labour of any kind.  Yet these pleasures, all
within his reach, Bulwer must, as compared with men born to similar
estate, have denied himself in assuming the position and pursuing
the career of a literary man.  Like Byron, his first effort was
poetical ('Weeds and Wild Flowers'), and a failure.  His second was
a novel ('Falkland'), and it proved a failure too.  A man of weaker
nerve would have dropped authorship; but Bulwer had pluck and
perseverance; and he worked on, determined to succeed.  He was
incessantly industrious, read extensively, and from failure went
courageously onwards to success.  'Pelham' followed 'Falkland'
within a year, and the remainder of Bulwer's literary life, now
extending over a period of thirty years, has been a succession of
triumphs.

Mr. Disraeli affords a similar instance of the power of industry
and application in working out an eminent public career.  His first
achievements were, like Bulwer's, in literature; and he reached
success only through a succession of failures.  His 'Wondrous Tale
of Alroy' and 'Revolutionary Epic' were laughed at, and regarded as
indications of literary lunacy.  But he worked on in other
directions, and his 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred,' proved the
sterling stuff of which he was made.  As an orator too, his first
appearance in the House of Commons was a failure.  It was spoken of
as "more screaming than an Adelphi farce."  Though composed in a
grand and ambitious strain, every sentence was hailed with "loud
laughter."  'Hamlet' played as a comedy were nothing to it.  But he
concluded with a sentence which embodied a prophecy.  Writhing
under the laughter with which his studied eloquence had been
received, he exclaimed, "I have begun several times many things,
and have succeeded in them at last.  I shall sit down now, but the
time will come when you will hear me."  The time did come; and how
Disraeli succeeded in at length commanding the attention of the
first assembly of gentlemen in the world, affords a striking
illustration of what energy and determination will do; for Disraeli
earned his position by dint of patient industry.  He did not, as
many young men do, having once failed, retire dejected, to mope and
whine in a corner, but diligently set himself to work.  He
carefully unlearnt his faults, studied the character of his
audience, practised sedulously the art of speech, and industriously
filled his mind with the elements of parliamentary knowledge.  He
worked patiently for success; and it came, but slowly:  then the
House laughed with him, instead of at him.  The recollection of his
early failure was effaced, and by general consent he was at length
admitted to be one of the most finished and effective of
parliamentary speakers.

Although much may be accomplished by means of individual industry
and energy, as these and other instances set forth in the following
pages serve to illustrate, it must at the same time be acknowledged
that the help which we derive from others in the journey of life is
of very great importance.  The poet Wordsworth has well said that
"these two things, contradictory though they may seem, must go
together--manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance
and manly self-reliance."  From infancy to old age, all are more or
less indebted to others for nurture and culture; and the best and
strongest are usually found the readiest to acknowledge such help.
Take, for example, the career of the late Alexis de Tocqueville, a
man doubly well-born, for his father was a distinguished peer of
France, and his mother a grand-daughter of Malesherbes.  Through
powerful family influence, he was appointed Judge Auditor at
Versailles when only twenty-one; but probably feeling that he had
not fairly won the position by merit, he determined to give it up
and owe his future advancement in life to himself alone.  "A
foolish resolution," some will say; but De Tocqueville bravely
acted it out.  He resigned his appointment, and made arrangements
to leave France for the purpose of travelling through the United
States, the results of which were published in his great book on
'Democracy in America.'  His friend and travelling companion,
Gustave de Beaumont, has described his indefatigable industry
during this journey.  "His nature," he says, "was wholly averse to
idleness, and whether he was travelling or resting, his mind was
always at work. . . . With Alexis, the most agreeable conversation
was that which was the most useful.  The worst day was the lost
day, or the day ill spent; the least loss of time annoyed him."
Tocqueville himself wrote to a friend--"There is no time of life at
which one can wholly cease from action, for effort without one's
self, and still more effort within, is equally necessary, if not
more so, when we grow old, as it is in youth.  I compare man in
this world to a traveller journeying without ceasing towards a
colder and colder region; the higher he goes, the faster he ought
to walk.  The great malady of the soul is cold.  And in resisting
this formidable evil, one needs not only to be sustained by the
action of a mind employed, but also by contact with one's fellows
in the business of life." {3}

Notwithstanding de Tocqueville's decided views as to the necessity
of exercising individual energy and self-dependence, no one could
be more ready than he was to recognise the value of that help and
support for which all men are indebted to others in a greater or
less degree.  Thus, he often acknowledged, with gratitude, his
obligations to his friends De Kergorlay and Stofells,--to the
former for intellectual assistance, and to the latter for moral
support and sympathy.  To De Kergorlay he wrote--"Thine is the only
soul in which I have confidence, and whose influence exercises a
genuine effect upon my own.  Many others have influence upon the
details of my actions, but no one has so much influence as thou on
the origination of fundamental ideas, and of those principles which
are the rule of conduct."  De Tocqueville was not less ready to
confess the great obligations which he owed to his wife, Marie, for
the preservation of that temper and frame of mind which enabled him
to prosecute his studies with success.  He believed that a noble-
minded woman insensibly elevated the character of her husband,
while one of a grovelling nature as certainly tended to degrade it.
{4}

In fine, human character is moulded by a thousand subtle
influences; by example and precept; by life and literature; by
friends and neighbours; by the world we live in as well as by the
spirits of our forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds we
inherit.  But great, unquestionably, though these influences are
acknowledged to be, it is nevertheless equally clear that men must
necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-
doing; and that, however much the wise and the good may owe to
others, they themselves must in the very nature of things be their
own best helpers.



CHAPTER II--LEADERS OF INDUSTRY--INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS



"Le travail et la Science sont desormais les maitres du monde."--De
Salvandy.

"Deduct all that men of the humbler classes have done for England
in the way of inventions only, and see where she would have been
but for them."--Arthur Helps.