Part 16

The moments lost in listlessness or squandered in unprofitable dissipation, gathered into aggregates, are hours, days, weeks, months, years. The daily sacrifice of a single hour during a year comes at its end to thirty-six working days, allowing ten hours to the day,--an amount of time, if devoted exclusively to one object, ample for the acquisition of important knowledge, and for the accomplishment of inconceivable good. Imagine, if you please, a solid month dedicated, without interruption, to a single purpose,--to the study of a new language, an untried science, an unexplored field of history, a fresh department of philosophy, or to some new sphere of action, some labor of humanity, some godlike charity,--and what visions must not rise of untold accumulations of knowledge, of unnumbered deeds of goodness! Who of us does not each day, in manifold ways, sacrifice these precious moments, these golden hours?

There is a legend of Mohammed which teaches how much may be crowded into a moment. It is said that he was suddenly taken up by an angel, and borne beyond the naming bounds of space, where he beheld the wonders of Heaven and Hell, the bliss of the faithful and the torments of the damned in measureless variety, and was then returned to the spot of earth from which he had been lifted,--all in so short a time that the water had not entirely run out of the pitcher which he let fall from his hands when he was borne upwards. But actual life furnishes illustrations of greater point. It is related of a celebrated French jurist, one of the ornaments of the magistracy, that he composed a learned and important work in the quarter hours that draggled between dinner ordered and dinner served. Napoleon directed one of his generals to move on a battery of the enemy, although reinforcements were in sight, saying, "It will take them fifteen minutes to reach the point; I have always observed that these _fifteen minutes_ decide great battles." In the currents of common life they are often as decisive as in the heady fight.

It would be easy, from literary and political history, from the lives of all who have excelled in any way, to accumulate illustrations of the power of industry. Among those who have achieved what the world calls greatness, the list might be extended from Julius Cæsar to Napoleon, whose feats of labor are among the marvels of history. Nor should we forget Alfred, the father of English civilization, whose better fame testifies also to the wise employment of time. Our own country, this very town, furnishes a renowned example in Benjamin Franklin. Here I pronounce a name which has its own familiar echoes. His early studies, when a printer's boy,--his singular experience of life in its extremes,--sounding in childhood all the humilities, as in maturer years he reached all that was exalted in place,--the truant boy become a teacher to the nations, and pouring light upon the highest schools of science and philosophy, touching the throne with hands once blackened by types and ink,--all this must be present to you. His first and constant talisman was industry. The autobiography in which he has recorded his progress in knowledge is a remarkable composition, where the style flows like a brook of transparent water, without a ripple on its smooth surface. Perhaps no single book has had greater influence in quickening labor and the rigid economy of time, overcoming all obstacles, among those whose early life has been chilled by penury or darkened by neglect. But we must qualify our praise. It cannot fail to be regretted that the lessons taught by Franklin are so little spiritual in their character,--that they are so material, so mundane, so full of pounds, shillings, and pence. "The Almighty Dollar," now ruling here with sovereign sway and masterdom, was placed on the throne by Poor Richard. When shall it be dethroned? When shall the thoughts, the aspirations, the politics of the land be lifted from the mere greed of gain, with an appetite that grows by what it feeds on, into the serene region of inflexible justice and universal benevolence? Could we imagine the thrift, the worldly wisdom, the practical sense, the inventive genius of Franklin, softened, exalted, illumined, inspired by the imagination, the grace, the sensibility, the heavenly spirit of Channing, we should behold a character under whose influence our country would advance at once in all spiritual as well as material prosperity,--where money should not be the "main chance," but truth, justice, righteousness, drawing in their train all the goods of earth, and reflecting all the blessings of heaven. Then would time be the best ally of man, and no day would pass without some good thing done.

Among the contemporaries of Franklin in England, unlike in the patrician circumstances of his birth, education, and life, most unlike in his topics of thought and study, but resembling him in the diligence and constancy of labor marking his career, was Edward Gibbon, author of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He also has left behind an autobiography,--in style and tone how unlike the simple narrative of Franklin!--where in living colors are depicted the labors and delights of a scholar's life. This book has always seemed to me, more than any other in the English language, calculated to enkindle the love of learning, and to train the student for its pursuit. Here he will find an example and guide in the various fields of scholarship, who will challenge his admiration in proportion as he shares the same generous aspiration. The autobiographies of Gibbon and Franklin are complements of each other. They teach the same lesson of labor and study in different spheres of life and to different classes of minds. Both have rare excellence as compositions, and constitute important contributions to that literature which illustrates the employment of time.

There is another character, of our own age, whose example is, perhaps, more direct and practical, especially as described by himself: I mean William Cobbett. To appreciate this example, you must know something of his long life, from early and inauspicious youth to venerable years, filled always with labors various, incessant, and Herculean, under which his elastic nature seemed to rise with renewed strength. He died in 1835, supposed to be seventy-three years of age, although the exact date of his birth was never known, and such was the position he had acquired that he was characterized at that time, even by hostile pens, as one of the most remarkable men whom England, fertile in intellectual excellence, ever produced. The lapse of little more than ten years has begun to obscure his memory. It will be for posterity to determine whether he has connected his name with those great causes of human improvement which send their influence to future ages, and are destined to be the only consideration on which fame hereafter will be awarded or preserved. But the memory of his labors, and the voice of encouragement to the poor and lowly which sounds throughout his writings, must always be refreshing to those whose hopes of future usefulness are clouded by discouragement and poverty. There can be none so humble as not to derive succor from his example. He was conscious even to vanity of his own large powers, and at the close of his long career surveyed his succession of labors--the hundred volumes from his sleepless pen, and the wide influence they had exercised--with the self-gratulation of the miser in counting his stores of gold and silver.

The son of a poor farmer, at the age of twenty he ran away from the paternal acres, and became for a short time copying-clerk to a lawyer, but, tiring soon of these duties, he enlisted in the army and found himself private in a regiment at Chatham, which was ordered to America. His merit soon raised him to the rank of corporal, and then of sergeant-major. At this time he saw his future wife and the mother of his children. The circumstances of this meeting, as described by himself in his own peculiar style, belong to this picture, while they illustrate the subject. "When I first saw my wife," he writes, "she was thirteen years old, and I was within a month of twenty-one. She was the daughter of a sergeant-major of artillery, and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for about an hour, in company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of which I have said so much, and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now dead of winter, and of course the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in my walk, and our road lay by the house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow, scrubbing out a washing-tub. 'That's the girl for me!' said I, when we had got out of her hearing."[126] To her he plighted faith. After eight years of service in the army, and his return to England, he obtained his discharge and married her.

[126] Life, pp. 44, 45.

In 1792 Cobbett came to the United States, living in Philadelphia, where he was bookseller, publisher, author, and libeller by profession. As "Peter Porcupine" he is well known. He shot his sharp and malicious quills at the most estimable characters,--Franklin, Jefferson, Gallatin, Priestley, and even the sacred name of Washington. A heavy judgment for libel hanging suspended over him, he fled from America, and from the justice he had aroused, to commence in England a fresh career of unquestioned talents, unaccountable inconsistency, and inexhaustible malignity.

On his arrival in England Cobbett attached himself warmly to the interests of Mr. Pitt, in whose behalf he wielded for a while his untiring pen. At the same time he commenced business as bookseller, in which he soon failed. In politics he showed himself more Tory than the most Tory. Mr. Windham, in the House of Commons, made the remarkable declaration, that "he merited a statue of gold."[127] His Letters on the Treaty of Amiens produced a sensation throughout Europe.[128] The celebrated Swiss historian, Von Müller, pronounced them more eloquent than anything since Demosthenes. How transitory is fame! These Letters, once so much admired, which, with profane force, helped to burst open the Temple of Janus, happily closed by peace, are now forgotten. I do not know that they are to be found in any library in this part of the country.

[127] Speech, August 5, 1803: Hansard, XXXVI. 1679.

[128] Letters to the Right Honorable Lord Hawkesbury and to the Right Honorable Henry Addington, on the Peace with Buonaparté; to which is added an Appendix. London, 1802.

It was at this period that he commenced his "Weekly Political Register," which for more than thirty years was the vehicle of his opinions and feelings. But the pungent Toryism with which he began his career was changed into a more pungent Liberalism; from the oil of Conservatism he passed to the vinegar of Dissent. He saw all things in a new light, and with unsparing criticism pursued the men he had recently extolled. His Ishmael pen was turned against every man. He wrote with the hardihood of a pirate and the ardor of a patriot. At length he was convicted of libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of a thousand pounds and to be imprisoned for two years. This severe incarceration he never forgave or forgot. With thoughts of vengeance he emerged from his prison to unaccustomed popularity. His "Register," into which, as into a seething caldron, he weekly poured the venom of his pen, reached the unprecedented circulation of one hundred thousand, an audience greater than was ever before addressed by saint or sinner. The soul swells in the contemplation of the good that might have been wrought by a spirit elevated to the high purpose, having access to so many human hearts. His pen waxing in inveteracy, and himself becoming daily more obnoxious to the Government, in 1817, by timely flight, he withdrew from the threatening storm, and sought shelter in the United States, where he lingered, principally on Long Island, till 1819, when he wandered back to England, there to renew his strifes and ruffle again the waters of political controversy. As late as 1831, he was, for the eighth time in his life, brought into court on a charge of libel. The veteran libeller, then seventy years of age, defended himself in a speech which occupied six hours. The jury did not agree,--six being for conviction and six for acquittal.

At the general election for the Reform Parliament in 1832, Cobbett was chosen member for the borough of Oldham, which seat he held until June 18, 1835, when his long, active, and disturbed career was closed by death, leaving her whom he had loved at the wash-tub, amid the snows of New Brunswick, his honored widow.

His character was unique. He was the most emphatic of writers, perhaps the most voluminous. He was foremost in the crew of haters; he was the paragon of turncoats. Sentiments uttered at one period were denied at another. At one time he wrote of Paine as follows: "He has done all the mischief he can in the world, and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth or to be dried in the air is of very little consequence. Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes."[129] Later in life, on his second visit to America, he exhumed the bones of the man he had thus reviled, and bore them in idolatrous custody to the land of his birth.

[129] Life of Thomas Paine: Political Censor, No. V., Sept., 1796: Porcupine's Works, Vol. IV. pp. 112, 113.

Besides his multitudinous political writings, which in number remind us of the cloud of "locusts warping on the eastern wind," he produced several works of great and deserved popularity,--a Grammar of the French Language, written while he rocked the cradle of his first child,--a Grammar of the English Language,--a little volume, "Advice to Young Men,"--and a series of sketches entitled "Rural Rides," in which he gave unmixed pleasure to friend and foe.

I have dwelt thus long upon the life and character of Cobbett, as a proper introduction to the picture of his marvellous industry, which I am able to present in his own language. The labor which he accomplished testifies; but in his writings he often refers to it with peculiar pride. He tells us how he learned grammar. Writing a fair hand, he was employed as copyist by the commandant of the garrison where he first enlisted. In his autobiography he says: "Being totally ignorant of the rules of grammar, I necessarily made many mistakes. The Colonel saw my deficiency, and strongly recommended study. I procured me a Lowth's Grammar, and applied myself to the study of it with unceasing assiduity. The pains I took cannot be described. I wrote the whole Grammar out two or three times; I got it by heart; I repeated it every morning and every evening; and when on guard, I imposed on myself the task of saying it all over once, every time I was posted sentinel."[130] Would that all posted as sentinels were as well employed as saying over to themselves the English grammar! If every common soldier could do this, there would be little fear of war. The evil spirits were supposed to be driven away by an Ave Maria or a word of prayer. The grammar would be as potent. "Terrible as an army with grammars" would be more than "Terrible as an army with banners."

[130] Life, p. 38.

In his "Advice to Young Men" Cobbett says: "For my part, I can truly say that I owe more of my great labors to my strict adherence to the precepts that I have here given you than to all the natural abilities with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great sobriety and abstinence, if I had not in early life contracted the blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To this, more than to any other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army. I was _always ready_. If I had to mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine; never did any man or any thing wait one moment for me.... My custom was this: to get up in summer at daylight, and in winter at four o'clock; shave, dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of cheese or pork and bread. Then I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the materials. After this I had an hour or two to read before the time came for any duty out of doors."[131]

[131] Advice to Young Men, pp. 35, 36.

At a later period of life, when his condition was entirely changed, and his name as a writer was in all men's mouths, he thus describes his habits. "I hardly ever eat more than twice a day,--when at home, never,--and I never, if I can well avoid it, eat any meat later than one or two o'clock in the day. I drink a little tea or milk-and-water at the usual tea-time (about seven o'clock). I go to bed at eight, if I can. I write or read from about four to about eight, and then, hungry as a hunter, I go to breakfast."[132]

[132] Life, p. 137.

In another place he recounts with especial satisfaction a conversation at which he was present, one of the parties to which was Sir John Sinclair, the famous agriculturist and correspondent of Washington. "I once heard Sir John Sinclair," he says, "ask Mr. Cochrane Johnstone whether he meant to have a son of his, then a little boy, taught Latin. 'No,' said Mr. Johnstone, 'but I mean to do something a great deal better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John. 'Why,' said the other, 'teach him to shave with cold water and without a glass.'"[133]

[133] Advice to Young Men, p. 34.

With this pertinacious devotion to labor, and this unparalleled sense of the value of time, Cobbett surrendered himself to the blandishments of domestic life. The hundred-armed giant of the press, he always had an arm for his child. "For my own part," he says, "how many days, how many months, all put together, have I spent with babies in my arms! My time, when at home, and when babies were going on, was chiefly divided between the pen and the baby. I have fed them and put them to sleep hundreds of times, though there were servants to whom the task might have been transferred. Yet I have not been effeminate; I have not been idle; I have not been a waster of time." "Many a score of papers have I written amidst the noise of children, and in my whole life never bade them be still. When they grew up to be big enough to gallop about the house, I have, in wet weather, when they could not go out, written the whole day amidst noise that would have made some authors half mad. It never annoyed me at all."[134]

[134] Advice to Young Men, pp. 142, 194.

These passages are like windows in his life, through which we discern his character, where the domestic affections seem to vie with the sense of time.

No person can become familiar with the career of Cobbett without recognizing regular habits of industry as the potent means of producing important results. Did the hour permit, it would be pleasant and instructive to review the career of another distinguished character, whose writings have added much to the happiness of his age, and whose rare feats of labor illustrate the same truth: I mean the author of "Waverley." There are points of comparison or contrast between Cobbett and Scott which might be presented at length. They were strictly contemporaries, spanning with their lives almost the same long tract of time. They were the most voluminous authors of their age, perhaps the most voluminous couple of any age. Since the days of Ariosto no writers had been read by so many persons as was the fortune of each. The marvellous fecundity of Scott was more than matched by the prolific energy of Cobbett. The fame of the Scotsman was equalled by the notoriety of the Englishman. If one awakened our delight, we could not withhold from the other our astonishment. With Scott life was a gala and a festival, with beauty, wit, and bravery. With Cobbett it was a stern reality, perpetually crying out, like the witch in Macbeth, "I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do." And yet Scott was hardly less careful of time than his indefatigable contemporary. His life is a lesson of industry, and the student may derive instruction from his example. Both sought in early rising the propitious hours of labor; but the morning brought its rich incense to the one, and its vigor to the other. They departed this life within a short period of each other, casting and leaving behind their voluminous folds of authorship. The future historian will note and study these; but the world, which has already dismissed Cobbett from its presence, will hardly cherish with enduring affection the writings of Scott. He lived in the Past, and, with ill-directed genius, sought to gild the force, the injustice, the inhumanity of the early ages. Cobbett lived intensely in the Present, and drew his inspiration from its short-lived controversies. For neither had Hope scattered from her "pictured urn" the delights of an unborn period, when the dignity of Humanity shall stand confessed. A greater fame than is awarded to either will be his who hereafter, with the imagination of the one and the energy of the other, without the spirit of Hate that animated Cobbett, without the spirit of Caste that prevailed in Scott, regarding life neither as a festival nor as a battle, forgetting Cavalier and Roundhead alike, and remembering only Universal Man, shall dedicate the labors of a long life, not to the Past, not to the Present only, but also to the Future, striving to bring its blessings nearer to all.

Such are some of the examples by which we learn the constant lesson of the value of time. For them genius did much, but industry went hand in hand with this celestial guide.

Here the student may ask by what rule time is to be arranged and apportioned so as to accomplish the greatest results. If we interrogate the lives of our masters in this regard, we shall find no uniform rule as to the employment of the day, or even the hours of repose. The great lawyer, Lord Coke, whose rare learning and professional fame cannot render us insensible to his brutality of character, has preserved for the benefit of the young student some Latin verses setting forth the proper division of the day, allowing six hours for sleep, six for the law, four for prayers, two for meals, while all the rest, being six hours more, is to be lavished on the sacred muses.[135] These directions are imperfectly reproduced in two English rhymes:--

Six hours in sleep; in law's grave study six; Four spend in prayer; the rest on Nature fix."

[135]

"Sex horas somno, totidem des legibus æquis, Quatuor orabis, des epulisque duas; Quod superest ultro sacris largire camoenis."

CO. LITT. 64.

A more estimable character than Lord Coke, in whose life clustered literary as well as professional honors, Sir William Jones, himself a model of the industry he inculcated, has said in a well-known distich:--

"Six hours to law, to soothing slumber seven, Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven."