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There are, however, elements of character more subtle, less easy to cultivate, and yet which have tremendous influence in fixing the stratum of society to which a man is ultimately to rise or fall. Two of these are self-respect and thrift. With regard to self-respect it cannot be too strongly impressed that the chief means of gaining the respect of others is to respect one's self. But there is danger in both directions. Want of self-respect will soon bring one down, no matter how favorable other circumstances may be; but in guarding against it, and it must be guarded against at all hazards, it is possible to go to the other extreme, and the production will be conceit and snobbery. There is, however, plenty of distance between Scylla and Charybdis; the one must be avoided, and it is well not to go too near the other. The moment self-respect becomes a negative quality there is great risk to the career, while as a positive quantity it may develop and increase considerably before it becomes injurious to success. By those whose standard of self-respect is low any higher standard than their own will be immediately dubbed conceit, and therefore judgment is required to fix the lines between want of self-respect and self-esteem carried to excess. This zone, for it cannot be described as a line, must not be fixed for us by others, but by ourselves, and the taunt of conceit must not be too readily taken to heart, for to carry self

respect too far is certainly to err in the right direction.

Another item of character which plays an important part in moulding the future is one's ideas regarding" standard of comfort" and expenditure. If a man makes up his mind to practise thrift, and if he considers that word a synonym for meanness, stinginess, and shabbiness, in order to save money, he has very little knowledge of the world. "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves" is advice ill-suited to the requirements of modern life. Judicious expenditure has probably made more fortunes than saving and economy have; and even among those whose incomes are not large and whose resources are limited (clerks in banks and similar institutions, men in business, or budding professional men) the expenditure of a disproportionately large part of income on appearances, not personal appearance only, is frequently one of the very best investments that could be made with the money. Extravagance is not judicious expenditure, and usually indicates a weak point in one's character. A man who has no other merit will frequently rely upon reckless expenditure to obtain for him the character for liberality and the good opinion of his fellows.

The foregoing brief summary is perhaps sufficient to show to how large an extent success is dependent upon character. But a good character is hardly an active cause of success, although it is a condition necessary to success. Everybody is expected to be honest, sober, punctual, moral, and to possess self-respect; and, strictly speaking, there is no comparative or superlative of these qualities in their positive form. If one man is less honest than another, the former must be at least slightly dishonest. If a man is not very honest, he is not an honest man at all; and if not very sober, his sobriety becomes a negative quantity at once. But if honesty and sobriety are not active causes of success, on the other hand dishonesty, intemperance, and want of self-respect are very active causes of failure, and may exist in every state and stage from positive to superlative.

It would be impossible within the limits of a magazine article to dwell at length upon each item of the component parts of the four classes into which the elements of success have been divided; indeed, to do so would probably result in a réchauffe of

stale platitudes. Having briefly glanced at the value of character, we now come to ability.

"Forti nihil difficile" was the adopted motto of Lord Beaconsfield, a man who rose to a very high pinnacle of fame and success by means principally of his abilities; not altogether by his abilities, for even the circumstance of being placed in a sphere in which he had the opportunity of distinguishing himself was not entirely due to his inherent merits, and so becomes luck. "To the strong nothing is difficult," was his somewhat conceited motto, and there is truth in the assertion; therefore it would be useful to the aspirants to success to know who are "the strong." What constitutes this strength which renders nothing difficult? It is special knowledge. "The strong" are those who have that knowledge, and who are not handicapped with adverse circumstances beyond their own control.

It must not be assumed that knowledge is a synonym for scholastic attainments. Scholastic attainments form a most valuable help to success, but it is well known that mere scholars, as a general rule, are not successful men of the world. The branch of knowledge which contributes most to success is that which Lord Beaconsfield possessed, a knowledge of men and of the ways of the world; and it could easily be shown by examples that when scholars have achieved success it has been because they have possessed some of the other elements of ability.

The constituent parts of ability for the purpose of advancing one's self in the world are natural talent, education or acquired ability, energy, discretion, address and manners, and self-assertion.

Natural talent is an accident of birth, and is undoubtedly a kind of luck, but it is also inherent merit. Natural talent seldom contributes to success except when it is cultivated, and when it is applied in a direction where it is appreciated, and when the person who possesses it knows how to let those to whom it is of value know that he does possess it. The process of cultivation of natural talent is called education, and it is only when education has made considerable progress that it is possible to discover what natural talents one possesses, and whether or not they are such as to be worth placing reliance upon to ensure a successful career.

NEW SERIES.-VOL, LIV., No. 1.

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Talent, cultivated or uncultivated, if it is only of average quality, is financially of little value. It becomes of value when it is above the average, and its value then will be found to increase in a geometrical rather than an arithmetical progression. It is in this respect like diamonds or pearls, the relative values of large and small being out of all proportion to size, every increase in size adding to the price in a much greater ratio until, like the Koh-i-noor and other historical gems, they become of almost priceless value. So it is with talent and skill. A man may have a talent for music, and may have bestowed upon it considerable cultivation. Up to a point it will only afford recreation to himself and pleasure to his friends, and at the same time be of very little market value, even though a not very wide gulf divides him from professionals receiving fabulous sums for their services.

Special professional skill or knowledge has proportionally very much greater value than average knowledge. In professions like those of law and medicine, there is so much ground to cover and so much knowledge to acquire, that it is almost impossible in a lifetime to master every branch of the study, and to keep pace with the new Acts, judicial interpretations, or medical discoveries which each year produces. To attempt to master the whole would usually result in general knowledge and skill of only average quality. It is the specialist who makes a reputation and a fortune. The great secret of professional success is to possess some branch of the skill or knowledge in a greater degree than the average of those in the profession, and if possible beyond all others. It is better for the individual, and certainly better for humanity, that a medical man, for instance, should devote himself heart and soul to the investigation and study of someparticular form of disease, and thereby add to pre-existing knowledge, and be himself in request because of his special skill.

It goes without saying that those who have natural talents and education have an advantage over those who have not, other things being equal. It is because other things are not equal that men of education sometimes fail to succeed, and are pushed aside in the race of life by others whose scanty information and moderate attainments are compensated for by energy, discretion, and self-assertion.

The teachers of the Christian religion are continually urging upon mankind the virtues of self-sacrifice and abnegation, and the great wickedness of self-seeking and ambition. Avarice, greed, envy and covetousness are the motives frequently ascribed to those who endeavor to succeed in life. Is it too much to say that very many men desire to possess wealth and influence in order that they may be enabled to benefit others, rather than to minister to their own selfish desires and pleasures? Whether it be to ensure the comfort of their families, to do honor to the family name, or to be in a position to confer benefits on those who stand in need of assistance, such motives most frequently are the real incentives to labor and industry on the part of men who already have achieved soine amount of success.

It must be borne in mind that in the race of life, unless a man knows how to keep in the running, there are thousands pressing him hard, only too ready to thrust him aside, and if he fall, to trample upon him without compunction or remorse. Self-assertion is indispensable; it is necessary in self-defence. A man who is conscious of and has confidence in his abilities, and who neglects to assert himself, commits a fraud upon those who are dependent upon him. But self-assertion unaccompanied by genuine merit becomes ludicrous, and is correctly described by the vulgar word "cheek." But even pure downright"cheek" is frequently the means of obtaining a large amount of success, because it may secure for one a position of importance, the duties of which, by the exercise of discretion alone, may be satisfactorily discharged by surrounding one's self with those whose brains, energy, discretion and address provide the qualities which are needed to maintain the position and fulfil its obligations. "Cheek" may, indeed, do more; it has sometimes obtained for a man a reputation for talents and attainments which he does not possess, or for having greater special knowl edge than he does possess. Having secured a reputation beyond his merits, his only care need be to prevent the world from being undeceived. This should not be very often a matter of difficulty; the world has always shown a ready disposition to assess a man's abilities at his own valuation, or at a reputed valuation; and as such an over-estimate frequently pro

cures the opportunity to achieve success, and as success depends so much upon having an opportunity, it opportunity, it follows that cheek" may be a most valuable factor in making a successful career.

Character and ability are admitted on all hands to be very important elements of success. Merit deserves success, but does not always ensure it, for the reason that its value may be neutralized by bad luck, or some of the elements of luck in a negative quantity. A youth who has sufficient natural talent for painting or sculpture to achieve great success if educated for the profession, may, through poverty, parental want of discernment, or other circumstances over which he has no control, have the misfortune to be placed in some occupation which precludes him entirely from following his favorite pursuit. Choice of profession or business by parents is a lottery; they make soldiers of effeminate cowards, parsons of rogues, and lawyers of fools. The coward might do remarkably well at something else, but bad luck has ordained it otherwise. The family living in the Church must not be lost, and the future rector is nominated from his very cradle. The fine old family business of the solicitor must not pass to strangers; the son, whatever his mental capacities, must succeed the father. Luck, however, often operates in the other direction, and the profession selected by the parent, by pure accident, may be that best suited to the talents and tastes of the youth, and a successful career is the result.

Luck plays an enormous part in forming careers. For example, in professions like the Army, the Law, the Church, or in the Civil Service, and large establishments, a very important element is the removal or retention of obstacles to promotion. Mortality among those holding high positions may give unexpected promotion to some, while others, similarly situated and whose prospects may have appeared better, continue in subordinate positions because no vacancies occur.

Another operation of chance is the age at which an individual secures his opportunity, because an opportunity invaluable to a man under middle age may be absolutely worthless to an older man.

But pure chance exerts its most powerful influence in the matter of health. Character and ability of the highest order, combined with all the other elements of op

portunity and assistance, are, alas! too often rendered nugatory by some form of ill-health, physical or mental.

When speaking of character, dishonesty was referred to as the frequent cause of ruined lives. Here, again, luck is powerful in both its positive and negative forms, in the shape of temptation. Who can tell what careers have been blighted and wrecked, families ruined, and honored names disgraced by the pure accident of strong temptation presenting itself? On the other hand, who can say what successful men have been saved by the good fortune of having been spared temptation which at certain periods of their lives they could not have resisted?

So with intemperance; a youth surrounded by bad examples and temptation at home is less likely to possess the virtue of sobriety than one brought up among abstainers. His failure in life may be the result due to the accident of chance in being tempted to do wrong. Of course, a man who is a drunkard, even under such circumstances, must be weak in character; but the same weakness of character might, in the absence of constant temptation, have proved no hindrance to success.

The opportunity to achieve success depends so much upon health, age, a congenial profession, a business in which competition is not too keen, and an absence of irresistible temptation to do serious wrong, through folly, ignorance, or weakness of will, that, on the whole, opportunity is chance. It may be said that a clever man can make his own opportunity to achieve success; he can choose his profession, for instance. True, if he has had the good fortune not to have had an unsuitable one chosen for him by others, or by himself. A man commencing the business of life frequently has more than one good opening placed before him, and much depends upon a correct decision as to which is the better, and that decision would often be made through some circumstance as purely the operation of chance as the result of tossing up a coin into the air. The advantages of one course may be carefully considered and weighed against the prospects of the other, and yet chance may be the ultimate arbiter. Many who have failed in life have be. moaned that failure was due to their having adopted a fatal course, through no want of judgment, when another was open;

many others have lived to know how at some period in their careers they paused before two turnings, and by good fortune alone avoided destruction.

Luck consists of opportunity and assistance. Opportunity is indispensable to success, but assistance is not indispensable, and success may be achieved not only without assistance, but even with that form of luck in a negative quantity. Unearned capital, influential parentage, useful friends, good personal appearance, good report, and the accident of pure chance favorable at important junctures, these are circumstances which facilitate one's endeavors to succeed in life.

The talismanic properties of money are too well known, alike to those who have it and those who have it not, to require even the briefest comment. Suffice it to say that experience seems to furnish constant examples of the fulfilment of the Scriptural paradox : "Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance ; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

Parentage, even in the last decade of the nineteenth century, is a potent element. The influence of a father who occupies an important position in the world is, of course, of service to the son. But valuable assistance is derived very often from the mere possession of a name which indicates influential connections, or kinship with an aristocratic family, even though it be an impoverished peerage or a new creation. It is undoubtedly true that the English people "dearly love a lord," and it is not untrue that even professing democrats have at times betrayed indications of a kind of sneaking reverence, not only for lords, but also for remote collateral descendants of aristocratic families, and have not unfrequently shown a preference for leaders chosen from the "classes." Parentage still influences employers in the selection of clerks and others in similar positions, although not to so large an extent as formerly. Caste influence is still so strong that the appointment of the son of a mechanic to be a clerk would, in many places of business, produce great indignation, and most probably the new-comer would be virtually boycotted by men perhaps morally and mentally his inferiors, and possessed in a less degree of the instincts and manners of gentlemen. This same caste influence is not confined to the

classes mentioned. In more important positions in life the accident of humble birth may militate very seriously against promotion, and the good fortune of having superior parentage may greatly assist one's advancement, so that men of equal ability and good character, and having the luck of opportunity in equal proportions, would discover that parentage is a form of assisting luck which it is impossible to ignore. The assistance of friends is classified as luck, because it is external to the individual who is thereby aided. The assistance of friends, or the evil wrought by the malevolence of an enemy, is good or bad luck, but the process of making friends is usually due to ability and character, and the making of enemies to indiseretion, or some other negative form of ability, if only a want of knowing how to conciliate. It has been remarked that the life of a man who never makes an enemy must be very insipid. Possibly it may seem so to those who love quarrels. But men of long experience could corroborate the assertion that one enemy is able very often to neutralize the whole favorable influences of a large number of friends; in other words, it is unwisdom to gain friends by making enemies, and bad policy to make enemies at all when it is not unavoidable. There is an energy in enmity and hate which one seldom finds in friendship; an enemy will take great pains to do harm, but friends, as a rule (there are exceptions to the rule), are satisfied to give such aid only as can be given without personal loss or inconvenience to themselves.

Good report and unmerited slander are the positive and negative forms of another element of assisting luck, the one proceeding from friends, the other emanating from enemies; actual enemies, though not always wilful enemies. The man who gives currency to a false statement as to another's character or abilities is an enemy, because he is doing harm, even though he may not have the slightest desire to do harm, or reason for wishing evil. The worst of slander is that it is so difficult to unearth and refute, unless it be repeated to one who has the courage to inform the person of whom it is spoken.

Human nature, unfortunately, is prone to listen to, and be interested in evil report, and to pay little heed to good report. The evil is remembered, the good soon

forgotten. Let a man succeed in having a speech or lecture reported to the length of half a column in the daily papers, neither he nor his friends will hear very much about his success; but let him, on the other hand, have his name mentioned in a small paragraph in any paper, if it be connected with something discreditable, a bill of sale, a police-court summons, or the like, the news will speedily travel into all the ramifications of his acquaintanceship, and will penetrate with a kind of capillary attraction, and be absorbed like moisture into a piece of sugar. What is true of published information, is equally true of oral communications, and the latter are more likely to give currency to statements which are libelous and false.

Slander may be unpreventable, and is then a form of bad luck; possibly of sufficient power to arrest a successful career which otherwise was assured. The individual who suffers may be in total ignorance of its operating against him, and be quite at a loss to ascertain the reason for his supersession, or his failure, where he had anticipated success.

Finally, the pure accident of chance has often made success. Speculation based upon unreliable information, unexpected legacies, an unforeseen demand for one's manufactures; these causes may bring wealth which is potential, although not omnipotent in making a successful career. The least meritorious are frequently the most fortunate. The operations of chance seldom coincide with justice, as was the case when the lot fell upon Jonah.

The foregoing arguments are intended to lead to the conclusion that success in life is dependent upon much that is quite beyond the influence or control of the aspirant. Great success connotes ambition, and implies a will to labor in order to attain the desired end. But it is possible to imagine cases where transcendent abilities and spotless character may exist unnoticed, unknown, and unrewarded.

Our army of to-day contains in the ranks generals as able as Wellington, Napoleon, or Von Moltke, but who will never be known to fame through not having the luck of opportunity; and in every sphere of life there are many quite willing to hide their light under a bushel, and the bushel is eagerly supplied for the purpose by others whose feeble flicker may then become visible.-National Magazine.

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