CHAP. VII.

INVINCIBLE DETERMINATION.

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manumitted from her filial service, and left her father's home in the company of her husband, Buxton sat down and thus wrote to a friend: "The bride is just gone; everything has passed off to admiration; and there is not a slave in the British colonies!"

Buxton was no genius-not a great intellectual leader nor discoverer, but mainly an earnest, straightforward, resolute, energetic man. Indeed, his whole character is most forcibly expressed in his own words, which every young man might well stamp upon his soul: "The longer I live," said he, "the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy-invincible determination—a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory! That quality will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature a man without it."

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A NARROW-MINDED DEFINITION.

CHAP. VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.

BUSINESS QUALITIES.

"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings." -Proverbs of Solomon.

"That man

but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to business and affairs."-Owen Feltham.

HAZLITT, in one of his clever essays,* represents the man of business as a mean sort of person put in a go-cart, yoked to a trade or profession; alleging that all he has to do is, not to go out of the beaten track, but merely to let his affairs take their own course. "The great requisite," he says, "for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination, or of any ideas but those of custom and interest on the narrowest scale." But nothing could be more one-sided, and in effect untrue, than such a definition. Of course, there are narrow-minded men of business, as there are narrow-minded scientific men, literary men, and legislators; but there are also business men of large and comprehensive minds, capable of action on the very largest scale. As Burke said in his speech on the India Bill, he knew statesmen who were pedlars, and merchants who acted in the spirit of statesmen.

If we take into account the qualities necessary for the successful conduct of any important undertaking,-that it requires special aptitude, promptitude of action on emergencies, capacity for organizing the labours often of large numbers of men, great tact and knowledge of human nature, * On Thought and Action.'

CHAP. VIII.

MEN OF GENIUS MEN OF BUSINESS.

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constant self-culture, and growing experience in the practical affairs of life,-it must, we think, be obvious that the school of business is by no means so narrow as some writers would have us believe. Mr. Helps has gone much nearer the truth when he said that consummate men of business are as rare almost as great poets,-rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs. Indeed, of no other pursuit can it so emphatically be said, as of this, that "Business makes Men."

But it has also been a favourite fallacy with dunces in all times, that men of genius are unfitted for business pursuits. Yet Shakespeare was a successful manager of a theatre-perhaps priding himself more upon his practical qualities in that capacity than on his writing of plays and poetry. Pope was of opinion that Shakespeare's principal object in cultivating literature was to secure an honest independence. Indeed he seems to have been altogether indifferent to literary reputation. It is not known that he superintended the publication of a single play, or even sanctioned the printing of one; and the chronology of his writings is still a mystery. It is certain, however, that he prospered in his business, and realized sufficient to enable him to retire upon a competency to his native town of Stratford-upon-Avon.

Chaucer was in early life a soldier, and afterwards an effective Commissioner of Customs, and Inspector of Woods and Crown Lands. Spenser was Secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and is said to have been very shrewd and attentive in matters of business. Milton, originally a schoolmaster, was afterwards elevated to the post of Secretary to the Council of State during the Commonwealth; and the extant Order-book of the Council, as well as many of Milton's letters which are preserved, give abundant evidence of his activity and usefulness in that office. Sir Isaac Newton proved himself a most efficient Master of the Mint; the new coinage of 1694 having been carried on under his immediate personal superintendence. Cowper

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INDUSTRY THE PRICE OF SUCCESS.

CHAP. VIII.

prided himself upon his business punctuality, though he confessed that he "never knew a poet except himself, who was punctual in anything." But against this we may set the lives of Wordsworth and Scott-the former a distributor of stamps, the latter a clerk to the Court of Session,—both of whom, though great poets, were eminently punctual and practical men of business. David Ricardo, amidst the occupations of his daily business as a London banker, in conducting which he acquired an ample fortune, was able to concentrate his mind upon his favourite subject—on which he was enabled to throw great light-the principles of political economy; for he united in himself the sagacious commercial man and the profound philosopher. We have abundant illustrations, even in our own day, of the fact that the highest intellectual power is not incompatible with the active and efficient performance of routine duties. Grote, the great historian of Greece, like Ricardo, is a London banker. And it is not long since John Stuart Mill, one of our greatest living thinkers, retired from the Examiner's department of the East India Company, carrying with him the admiration and esteem of his fellow-officers, not on account of his high views of philosophy, but because of the high standard of efficiency which he had established in his office, and the thoroughly satisfactory manner in which he had conducted the business of his department.

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The path of success in business is invariably the path of common sense. Notwithstanding all that is said about "lucky hits," the best kind of success in every man's life is not that which comes by accident. The only "good time coming" we are justified in hoping for, is that which we are capable of making for ourselves. The fable of the labours of Hercules is indeed the type of all human doing and success. Every youth should early be made to feel that if he would get through the world usefully and happily, he must rely mainly upon himself and his own independent energies. The late Lord Melbourne embodied a piece of useful advice in a letter which he wrote to Lord

CHAP. VIII.

NECESSITY FOR LABOUR A BLESSING.

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193

John Russell, in reply to an application for a provision for one of Moore the poet's sons: My dear John," he said, "I return you Moore's letter. I shall be ready to do what you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct, direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is; and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language but this: 'You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your own exertions whether you starve or not.' Believe me, &c., MELBOURNE."

It is not good for human nature to have the road of life made too easy. Better to be under the necessity of working hard and faring meanly, than to have everything done ready to our hand and a pillow of down to repose upon. Indeed, to start in life with comparatively small means seems so necessary as a stimulus to work, that it may almost be set down as one of the conditions essential to success in life. Hence, an eminent judge, when asked what contributed most to success at the bar, replied, "Some succeed by great talent, some by high connexions, some by miracle, but the majority by commencing without a shilling." So is it a common saying at Manchester, that the men who are the most successful in business there are those who begin the world in their shirt sleeves; whereas those who begin with fortunes generally lose them. Necessity is always the first stimulus to industry; and those who conduct it with prudence, perseverance, and energy, will rarely fail. Viewed in this light, the necessity of labour is not a chastisement, but a blessing,-the very root and spring of all that we call progress in individuals, and civilization in nations. It may, indeed, be questioned whether a heavier curse could be imposed on man than the complete gratification of all his wishes without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his hopes, desires, or struggles. The feeling