Chapter 5

The young man who purposely keeps his mind on his fine clothes is lost. He is a coxcomb. He has no greater influence with the young ladies for all his fine feathers. Let me leave you selling a large bill, remembering that civility costs nothing and buys everything, and feeling that the very perfection of good manners is not to think of yourself.

ECONOMY.

Behold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. --I Kings, XVIII, 44.

Franklin says that, if you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone. Cicero, many hundreds of years before Ben Franklin said: "Economy is of itself a great revenue," and another Roman writer put it still better when he said: "There is no gain so certain as that which arises from sparing what you have." "Beware of small expenses," again writes Franklin; "a small leak will sink a great ship." In our large cities there are thousands of servant girls earning from two and a half to three dollars a week. The men who employ them often get from twenty-five to one hundred dollars per week, yet it is a notorious fact that the prudent servant girl usually has more money at her command, clear of all debts, than her employer, whose expenses scrape very closely against his income. Now you are on a salary in a store. Perhaps that salary is yours, to spend as you see fit. If so, remember that, like the highest officer in the land, you have certain duties. If you were President you could not appoint your old schoolmate Secretary of State unless he had made as much progress in politics as yourself. So, too,

IN YOUR MONEY MATTERS,

you cannot make yourself so valuable to your employer that he will not, before he advances you, inquire into your personal expenses, and find out what you do with your money. If you have spent it, year after year, as fast as you could get it, he will have great misgivings about letting you into a position where your desire to distribute currency can possibly lead you to practice on his funds. Among the easy ways to spend money in a small town is the habit of hiring livery-rigs. The business is just as useful as a drug-store, but no poor boy should hire equipages for mere pleasure. To attend a funeral, or to take a sick mother or sister out in the sunshine, is commendable. The youth who does that rarely needs the other suggestion, however, for those who spend the most money at a livery stable are usually seen with their mothers and sisters the least. No young man who thinks well of himself will enter a saloon at all. Often the worst classes in the whole country frequent

RURAL SALOONS,

men who dare not walk through the streets of any of the large cities. Perhaps at the card-table in the groggery across the street is a man who has come to your town to break into your employer's store! Anyway, there is no "business" in the world which returns so little for the money accepted as the saloon. Take

A GALLON OF WHISKY,

for instance. It is worth a dollar to a dollar and a half. It has been taxed ninety cents by the Government, leaving it worth that much less. Well, now, a man is expected to go into a saloon, and, for about three tablespoonsful of this stuff, he pays ten cents in the town and fifteen cents in the city. Your news dealer pays eight cents for an illustrated paper, and twenty-eight cents for a popular magazine. He sells the one for ten cents and the other for thirty-five cents, taking all the risk of not getting a sale. If you could afford to travel with such people as are found in saloons, in the first place, and to put such truly abominable stuff in your mouth in the second place, you could not, even then, in the third place, afford to give fifteen cents for what is in fact worth less than a mill. You are in reality giving away your money to the Government and the saloon keeper.

LET VANDERBILT SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT,

and those who have made their fortunes and their bad habits the saloon-keeper. I have dwelt on this, because these are few young men who are not tempted. All the above applies to tobacco. It is an utterly obnoxious habit to use tobacco. It is the cause, together with the dough falsely called pastry, of all the dyspepsia in our climate. It ruins the eyes, it costs money in vast quantities, returning almost nothing in goods, and has but one redeeming feature that I know of--it is

JUST AS BAD ON MOTHS AS IT IS ON MEN,

and it makes a musty room smell a little better. If you can keep out of saloons and shooting galleries, you will not play billiards or cards--both very expensive--you will not use tobacco, and you will be less apt to go to dances and hire livery teams. Should you preserve yourself against these vices of our young men, you will have money without denying yourself clothes as handsome as a poor young man looks well in. Three short years' savings will put you in possession of a sum of money sufficient to set you to thinking about business for yourself, either with your employer or alone, for

LIFE IN AMERICA IS SHORT.

A man is a failure almost before he thinks he ought to have been considered as started. If you have been receiving small remuneration, be assured that a capital all the smaller is needed in your town. The market value of labor is the largest element in the problem of business. If you worked cheap, then others will, and if they will, it is because living is cheap. The high-priced man in the city has to be paid highly because of his expenses, not because he has taken a vow to save a large amount of money. "He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he that has a great deal left to him does to his father's care," says William Penn. "He is a good wagoner who can turn in a little room," says Bishop Hall. How many a man, in getting a costly home, has found that old Franklin was right when he said it was easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel. Therefore, when you get anything,

BEWARE IT ENTAILS LITTLE EXPENSE OF KEEPING.

A horse will eat you poor; a gun will cost you a hundred guns. Think of it when you buy them, and you will thereafter have no regrets, besides being less apt to make such purchases. "Gain may be temporary and uncertain," says Franklin, "but expense is constant and certain." "Not to be covetous is money; not to be a purchaser is income," says Cicero. "A fool and his money are soon parted," says the adage. "Live by hope, and you will die by despair," says the Italian proverb. Save all you can honorably. Harness it up and make it pull also by bringing in to you a little interest. Here will be your first real business move--one of grave importance. The little cloud that ariseth out of the sea, like a man's hand, will soon cover your financial sky, and bring an abundant shower of the good things of this life.

COURAGE.

I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.--Shakspeare.

Courage is adversity's lamp. Perhaps the young man's courage is more sorely tried than that of the man of middle age, for age dreads the whip of events, while youth champs their bit. Youth cannot endure the thought of a long siege. The ladders must be put against the walls, the breach must be clambered through, and if the citadel be strong, the rash onset will be repulsed with heavy loss. But Hope dotes on youth. The young are her flock, her fold, her children. Into the hands of her children she puts the scimitar of courage, and bids them go forth again. Let us suppose you have been cast down your ladder, and have little but your courage. It may be necessary to leave your pleasant little town and seek employment where men are used as machines--in the great cities. Such a fate is, indeed, a sad reverse. The safety of home, the magazines of moral ammunition stored all about you, the bomb-proofs against the shells of soul-destruction aimed at every soldier in life, will all be torn from you, and you will be as a Knight of the Cross, alone on the desert. Perhaps

YOU HAVE REACHED THE GREAT CITY.

Now buckle on your armor. You do not need an intrepid courage, now; intrepid courage may have brought you here; intrepid courage is but a holiday kind of a virtue, to be seldom exercised, as experience will teach you. You need firmness to resist all kinds of attacks. You need good-nature, and yet you must repel temptation with a look as black as Erebus. You need affability, yet you must speak almost by rote, and the opportunities to keep from speaking outnumber the exigencies in which you must speak by ten to one. You must be tender, and yet you must be cruel as a surgeon. Without these opposites well balanced in your character, you will not fight the battle successfully.

NAPOLEON

won his battles by hurling ten thousand men upon two thousand. Simple, was it not? Now you are one young soldier. You will have to find a place in the enemy's lines which is even weaker than you before you can throw yourself against it with success. You, therefore, cannot be too circumspect. If the General pushes two thousand men against one thousand, on ground that is otherwise even, he is a wise leader, but if he finds four thousand enemies there, and if his principal attack is hazarded in the action, he is always accounted a daring fool. Let me recall

THE ATTACK OF A YOUNG MAN

who broke through the enemy's lines, in the City of Chicago. He got eight dollars a week in a city on the Mississippi River, and was led to believe that, if he went to Chicago, he could get ten dollars. He was employed as a clerk in a Commercial Agency, a business which aims to ascertain the standing and degree of success or lack of fortune of the retail dealers of the region it covers. He felt that eight dollars a week were all that he could ever get where he was. Upon his arrival in the City of Chicago he was put at work for seven dollars, the representations made to him having proven unreliable. There were about fifty young men and women in the same room. Seated at his desk when eight o'clock came, he found that his chances to rise were seemingly restricted to the hours of noon and six o'clock. In this way he worked for six months. He was fortunate enough to obtain board at five dollars a week, leaving him, after his washing, perhaps a dollar and a quarter clear. To a man of twenty-five years who could see the real difficulties of his future, the need of a high quality of moral courage was urgent. And he had it. He got acquainted with a humble friend, considerably better off, who therefore, could talk to him very bravely of the dignity of labor, and the honor of paying one's way, even if it took only five dollars and seventy-five cents to do it. This young friend did thus encourage and inspire the young clerk, and he was able to set about improving his mind.

HE READ THE BIBLE THROUGH

during this six months, and thus acquired a style of simple expression which would be of value to him in his reports when he should travel. He read Plutarch's Lives. He studied French, and read "The Man Who Laughs" and "Paul and Virginia," two remarkably different works. You see he was a man of persistence. But such a mind finds the humiliation of a dollar and a quarter a week all the more bitter. A man conversing with Plutarch about the relative merits of Pompey and Lucullus, or of Marius and Sylla, dislikes to be

DOCKED THREE HOURS

for being ten minutes late, and dislikes to return to his landlady at the end of the week and give her five-sevenths of the whole spoil of Bythnia and the Propontis! One day the second assistant manager spoke to him, and this ray of hope lit his way to a seat on a high stool to write out "tickets" for merchants who send in to see about Blow & Co., of Bugleville. This gave him eight dollars a week, and enabled him to go to a theatre once in a while and hear

SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS.

One night he approached his friend and announced that the die was cast, and that he should become an actor. Nothing could be worse than he was doing. Absolutely no business paid less than eight dollars per week, unless it were his own itself which had paid him seven dollars. It was a summer month. A theatre was empty. A dramatic agent had agreed to get up a company and run the place a week. It would require only twenty-five dollars from the young man. He would then be a sharer in the profits, would be given a minor part in the cast of characters, and would thereafter be secured

AN ENGAGEMENT WITH JOHN M'CULLOUGH

or John Raymond at about fifteen dollars a week. The dramatic agent was to have ten dollars from the first week's salary of the regular engagement. As he was working at absolutely bottom figures (board usually costing at least six dollars a week) and as he was skillful at his business, and could command work at all times if he were willing to work for his board, the young man thought he was not very rash in making an attempt, and yet it seemed to the friend of the young man like the memorable jump of the fish out of the frying-pan. The difficulty of going back to work after a failure was entirely overlooked. The young man paid his twenty-five dollars, absolutely the frugal hoard of six months of toil, got a leave of absence for three weeks, and studied all one week, meanwhile eating five dollars' worth of very poor board.

HE "ACTED" THROUGH THE WEEK

up to Thursday, when the company failed to pay in advance for the gas, and it was shut off. He spent the next two or three days preparing himself for a part in "The Gilded Age." On the second night the "heavy man," Raymond, became enraged at the manner in which this part was borne, and demanded that the character be given into the hands of another person. This was the finishing stroke. The young man stayed at "home" for three days, and on Friday night went to see his more fortunate associate. To his friend, who perhaps saw things in a prejudiced light, it seemed like a conspiracy to make good the dramatic agent's word of promise--to keep it to the ear and break it to the hope.

THE YOUNG MAN'S MONEY WAS GONE,

he was in debt for three weeks' board, and he had been ruthlessly and ignominiously branded with failure. He reverted to Brutus at Philippi, to Cato, and he was nearly on the verge of suicide. It may be that the cheering words of his friend brought out his true but latent courage. What were a troop of vulgar and ill-mannered players to him? What was a dramatic agent but a harpy? He was worth a whole theatre full of actors such as had worked almost his ruin. Go back and put his nose down to the grindstone, his desk, where, at least they paid men enough to live on, and did not make it necessary to cheat a poor landlady!

JEREMY COLLIER

has said that "true courage is the result of reasoning. Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins, and a just sense of honor and of infamy, of duty and religion, will carry us farther than all the force of mechanism." The young man had the courage to go back. His friend was gratified. As the months passed the bitterness departed. Christmas Day the young man was sent to the Stock Yards to do a week's-reporting. That Christmas-week was one of the coldest ever seen in this climate. The young man's unweathered ears and nose were badly frost-bitten. But notwithstanding this great obstacle of a cold snap he made a success of his expedition. His reports demonstrated that the Bible and Plutarch had not been sown on stony places, and that good English could be used in reporting the standing and prospects of a retail firm as well as in a memorial to Congress. When he got back

THE MANAGER OF THE HOUSE HIMSELF

spoke to him, and the second assistant assured him that one of the "outside men" would soon be put aside to give him a chance on the road. When a young man goes on the road his board is paid, so that it is that much of an advance of salary. Six long months, however, ran along at eight dollars a week, and the unsatisfactory man on the road proved more influential than the second assistant. When our young man saw this, he went to the manager, demanded nine dollars a week, and got it after a loud protest from that broad-hearted functionary. The next week--this was in the summer--he went on the road in place of a sick man, traveled through nearly all the towns in Illinois and Iowa, and made a fine record, both as to the character of his work, his speed, and his expenses. Upon his return a rival firm, hearing of his work, made him a proposition at a thousand dollars a year and expenses, with two months' holiday each year, and he signed a contract. His first year's tramp took him through nearly all the towns of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. He returned in August, with nine hundred dollars in cash credited to his account in the bank and demanded and received fifteen hundred dollars and expenses for going over the same route the next year, and to-day he stands with his head as high among his fellows as any young man in America. Now a retrospect of the young man's short career shows that

HE HAD GENUINE COURAGE.

He never failed when he had any chance to succeed. He never will. For such a man the world is not a world of chance. It is almost a certainty. The opportunities are more frequent than the men with courage.

DURING THE HARDEST WINTER

since 1842 the young man passed through experiences on the road, brought about by deep snows and blundering Postmasters that would sicken anybody's heart, experiences that without excellent brain-work would simply have stalled anybody, but his coolness, his use of the telegraph with unerring judgment in following the movements of his superior (who was traveling in like difficulties--it was like Kepler making a path for Mars while himself riding on the earth),--extricated him, and made his journeys little more costly, all told, than those of the preceding year. In the city all depends on courage. This young man espied a few weak places in the enemy's lines. He attacked with vigor. In the charge on the theatre he met the enemy in force and was thrown back with heavy loss, but in all the other onsets the enemy had no force to withstand him. One quality which the young man had in a large measure was the fear of failure. "The brave man is not he who feels no fear, for that were stupid and irrational; but he whose noble soul its fear subdues, and bravely dares the danger Nature shrinks from." There is a quality much akin to moral courage, which, however, is not present very noticeably in the strongest natures, but which is

THE ANCHOR TO MANY LIVES.

I will present it in the following pages. But let me assure you that if you have the truest courage--the kind that this young man had--you will not need the quality which I will next take up. Hope rides in a palace-car, along the railroad, and over the tremendous bridges which Courage has constructed.

HOPE.

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, Adorns and cheers the way: And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.--Goldsmith.

Hope is the best part of our riches. For it alone reaches further than any other--off into the world which is to come. But I am speaking to you of the practical advantages of hope. Bacon says: "Hope is leaf-joy, which may be beaten out to a great extension, like gold." It has been most beautifully said by Hillard that the shadow of human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope. Shakspeare says the miserable have no other medicine. "Hope is a prodigal young heir, and Experience is his banker, but his drafts are seldom honored, since there is often a heavy balance against him." Now to make his account good in the First National Bank of Experience, what should Hope do? He plainly should begin the deposit of probabilities to draw against. Walter Scott says: "Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears," and I should think his drafts would be honored just so far as they were drawn with circumspection. "Folly ends" writes Cowper "where genuine hope begins." But where there is no hope there can be no endeavor, so whether it exist in superabundance or not let us cultivate it as one of the loveliest of the flowers of life, as absolutely the sweetest perfume that ever burns in the Golden Censer. Let me tell you how

HOPE ALONE SAVED THE LIFE

of one of the finest young men in the land. He was the son of a wealthy wine merchant who had failed in business near Bath-Easton, England. Like many other lads, he felt the sting of circumstances which promised to alter, and without good advice got ready to come to America. He was well trained in the wine trade, and supposed that employment would at once open to him. He brought over two guns, two revolvers, a field glass, a sword, much valuable jewelry, about twelve suits of clothes and not a very large amount of money--possibly three hundred dollars. After seeing Boston and New York, he "left for the plains," and

ARRIVED IN CHICAGO ON CHRISTMAS,

the year before the great conflagration. Here he was met by other English friends, and the New Year's calls customary in the city were made "in fine style," for he was an engaging young man. In just a casual way he inquired for work, but found his trade did not exist in the New World. He was thus in the worst business position conceivable. He had had no drill in anything that would do him any good. Upon spending the last of his money one night--I think it was for a game of billiards--he made up his mind that he would go out after work the next day. This he did. He tramped the snowy streets early in the morning. He waded in the slush at noon. He clambered over the frozen mud at night. But everywhere it was dull. The employers were keeping their men simply to have them when the busy season began. All would say:

"CALL IN NEXT MAY!"

His campaign in Chicago was methodic. He took a certain street each day. He canvassed one side in the forenoon. He returned in the afternoon, often carrying his lunch. He never lost hope. But oh! it was discouraging to those who saw it. Another young man came from St. Louis to the boarding-house and got a situation in a great dry-goods house, as entry clerk, for he was a skilled man. This was unfortunate for our friend, for the companionship of the St. Louis accession was a positive injury. He resembled the pictures of Byron and was of a viciously despondent turn of mind. He hated life and life's duties. Our friend fell into the toils. Together they bemoaned the hardness of the world, and presently,

LIKE THE COMMUNISTS IN AMERICA,

they overturned kingdoms and systems of society as they blew the foam from their beer. This folly led to a fight at the boarding-house which lowered our friend from an English gentleman to a fellow who was destitute and drunken, but it opened his eyes. St. Louis left for warmer climes, but our friend redoubled his energy, and finished the actual canvass of every decent-looking place of business and factory in Chicago! This is, as I believe, from actual evidences I had at the time, an actual fact.

A FINE-LOOKING HEALTHY YOUNG MAN

asked every probable employer in Chicago whose attention he could secure if there were any work, and the answer was "No, sir!" This took him till about the first of May. He had no influence. He had no friend who had influence, nor any chance to get one. His watch, rings, and scarf-pin gradually went to the landlady. His shot-gun, field-glass and clothes were carried to the pawnbrokers. For his musket he got a dollar, and

FOR HIS SWORD