Wisdom & Empowerment: The Orison Swett Marden Edition (18 Books in One Volume). Orison Swett Marden
back would cost thousands upon thousands of my affectionate countrymen more than a fifth of their week's wages. If you shut the post office to them, which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and generous affections from home, kindred, and friends." The lad learned that it cost to carry a letter from London to Edinburgh, four hundred and four miles, one eighteenth of a cent, while the government charged for a simple folded sheet of paper twenty-eight cents, and twice as much if there was the smallest inclosure. Against the opposition and contempt of the post-office department he at length carried his point, and on January 10, 1840, penny postage was established throughout Great Britain. Mr. Hill was chosen to introduce the system, at a salary of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His success was most encouraging, but at the end of two years a Tory minister dismissed him without paying for his services, as agreed. The public was indignant, and at once contributed sixty-five thousand dollars; and, at the request of Queen Victoria, Parliament voted him one hundred thousand dollars and ten thousand dollars a year for life.
Christ knew that one affection rules in man's life when he said, "No man can serve two masters." One affection, one object, will be supreme in us. Everything else will be neglected and done with half a heart. One may have subordinate plans, but he can have but one supreme aim, and from this aim all others will take their character.
It is a great purpose which gives meaning to life, it unifies all our powers, binds them together in one cable; makes strong and united what was weak, separated, scattered.
"Painting is my wife and my works are my children," replied Michael Angelo when asked why he did not marry.
"Smatterers" are weak and superficial. Of what use is a man who knows a little of everything and not much of anything? It is the momentum of constantly repeated acts that tells the story. "Let thine eyes look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left." One great secret of St. Paul's power lay in his strong purpose. Nothing could daunt him, nothing intimidate. The Roman Emperor could not muzzle him, the dungeon could not appall him, no prison suppress him, obstacles could not discourage him. "This one thing I do" was written all over his work. The quenchless zeal of his mighty purpose burned its way down through the centuries, and its contagion will never cease to fire the hearts of men.
"Try and come home somebody," said the fond mother to Gambetta as she sent him off to Paris to school. Poverty pinched this lad hard in his little garret study and his clothes were shabby, but what of that? He had made up his mind to get on in the world. For years this youth was chained to his desk and worked like a hero. At last his opportunity came. Jules Favre was to plead a great cause on a certain day; but, being ill, he chose this young man, absolutely unknown, rough and uncouth, to take his place. For many years Gambetta had been preparing for such an opportunity, and he was equal to it, for he made one of the greatest speeches that up to that time had ever been made in France. That night all the papers in Paris were sounding the praises of this ragged, uncouth Bohemian, and soon all France recognized him as the Republican leader. This sudden rise was not due to luck or accident. He had been steadfastly working and fighting his way up against opposition and poverty for just such an occasion. Had he not been equal to it, it would only have made him ridiculous. What a stride; yesterday, poor and unknown, living in a garret, to-day, deputy elect, in the city of Marseilles, and the great Republican leader! The gossipers of France had never heard his name before. He had been expelled from the priest-making seminary as totally unfit for a priest and an utterly undisciplinable character. In two weeks, this ragged son of an Italian grocer arose in the Chamber, and moved that the Napoleon dynasty be disposed of and the Republic be declared established.
When Louis Napoleon had been defeated at Sedan and had delivered his sword to William of Prussia, and when the Prussian army was marching on Paris, the brave Gambetta went out of the besieged city in a balloon barely grazed by the Prussian guns, landed in Amiens, and by almost superhuman skill raised three armies of 800,000 men, provided for their maintenance, and directed their military operations. A German officer said, "This colossal energy is the most remarkable event of modern history, and will carry down Gambetta's name to remote posterity." This youth who was poring over his books in an attic while other youths were promenading the Champs Élysées, although but thirty-two years old, was now virtually dictator of France, and the greatest orator in the Republic. What a striking example of the great reserve of personal power, which, even in dissolute lives, is sometimes called out by a great emergency or sudden sorrow, and ever after leads the life to victory! When Gambetta found that his first speech had electrified all France, his great reserve rushed to the front, he was suddenly weaned from dissipation, and resolved to make his mark in the world. Nor did he lose his head in his quick leap into fame. He still lived in the upper room in the musty Latin quarter, and remained a poor man, without stain of dishonor, though he might easily have made himself a millionaire. When Gambetta died the "Figaro" said, "The Republic has lost its greatest man." American boys should study this great man, for he loved our country, and made our Republic the pattern for France.
There is no grander sight in the world than that of a young man fired with a great purpose, dominated by one unwavering aim. He is bound to win; the world stands one side and lets him pass; it always makes way for the man with a will in him. He does not have one half the opposition to overcome that the undecided, purposeless man has who, like driftwood, runs against all sorts of snags to which he must yield, because he has no momentum to force them out of his way. What a sublime spectacle it is to see a youth going straight to his goal, cutting his way through difficulties, and surmounting obstacles, which dishearten others, as though they were but stepping-stones! Defeat, like a gymnasium, only gives him new power; opposition only doubles his exertions, dangers only increase his courage. No matter what comes to him, sickness, poverty, disaster, he never turns his eye from his goal.
"Duos qui sequitur lepores, neutrum capit."
CHAPTER VII.
SOWING AND REAPING.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.—GALATIANS.
Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.—G. D. BOARDMAN.
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.—POPE.
How use doth breed a habit in a man.—SHAKESPEARE.
All habits gather, by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
DRYDEN.
Infinite good comes from good habits which must result from the common influence of example, intercourse, knowledge, and actual experience—morality taught by good morals.—PLATO.
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt till they are too strong to be broken.—SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Man is first startled by sin; then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed. Then man is impenitent, then obstinate, then he is damned.—JEREMY TAYLOR.
"Rogues differ little. Each began as a disobedient son."
In the great majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever afflicted Egypt.—JOHN FOSTER.
You cannot in any given case, by any sudden and single effort, will to be true if the habit of your life has been insincere.—F. W. ROBERTSON.
The tissue of the life to be,
We weave with colors all our own;
And in the field of destiny,
We reap as we have sown.
WHITTIER.
"Gentlemen of the jury, you will now consider your verdict," said the great lawyer, Lord Tenterden, as he roused from his lethargy a moment, and then closed his eyes forever. "Tête d'armée" (head of the army), murmured Napoleon faintly; and then, "on the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted