No man is born into this world whose work is not born with
him.—LOWELL.
Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them
up.—GARFIELD.
Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon
opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its
utmost of possible achievement—these are the martial virtues which
must command success.—AUSTIN PHELPS.
"I will find a way or make one."
There never was a day that did not bring its own opportunity for
doing good that never could have been done before, and never can be
again.—W. H. BURLEIGH.
"Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it."
"If we succeed, what will the world say?" asked Captain Berry in
delight, when Nelson had explained his carefully formed plan before
the battle of the Nile.
"There is no if in the case," replied Nelson. "That we shall
succeed is certain. Who may live to tell the tale is a very
different question." Then, as his captains rose from the council to
go to their respective ships, he added: "Before this time to-morrow
I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey." His quick eye
and daring spirit saw an opportunity of glorious victory where
others saw only probable defeat.
"Is it POSSIBLE to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers
who had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard.
"Perhaps," was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of
possibility."
"FORWARD THEN," said the Little Corporal, without heeding their
account of apparently insurmountable difficulties. England and
Austria laughed in scorn at the idea of transporting across the
Alps, where "no wheel had ever rolled, or by any possibility could
roll," an army of sixty thousand men, with ponderous artillery,
tons of cannon balls and baggage, and all the bulky munitions of
war. But the besieged Massena was starving in Genoa, and the
victorious Austrians thundered at the gates of Nice, and Napoleon
was not the man to fail his former comrades in their hour of
peril.
When this "impossible" deed was accomplished, some saw that it
might have been done long before. Others excused themselves from
encountering such gigantic obstacles by calling them insuperable.
Many a commander had possessed the necessary supplies, tools, and
rugged soldiers, but lacked the grit and resolution of Bonaparte,
who did not shrink from mere difficulties, however great, but out
of his very need made and mastered his opportunity.
Grant at New Orleans had just been seriously injured by a fall from
his horse, when he received orders to take command at Chattanooga,
so sorely beset by the Confederates that its surrender seemed only
a question of a few days; for the hills around were all aglow by
night with the camp-fires of the enemy, and supplies had been cut
off. Though in great pain, he immediately gave directions for his
removal to the new scene of action.
On transports up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and one of its
tributaries; on a litter borne by horses for many miles through the
wilderness; and into the city at last on the shoulders of four men,
he was taken to Chattanooga. Things assumed a different aspect
immediately.
A master had arrived who was
equal to the
situation. The army felt the grip of his power. Before he could
mount his horse he ordered an advance, and although the enemy
contested the ground inch by inch, the surrounding hills were soon
held by Union soldiers.
Were these things the result of chance, or were they compelled by
the indominable determination of the injured General?
Did things
adjust themselves when Horatius with two
companions held ninety thousand Tuscans at bay until the bridge
across the Tiber had been destroyed?—when Leonidas at Thermopylae
checked the mighty march of Xerxes?—when Themistocles, off the
coast of Greece, shattered the Persian's Armada?—when Caesar,
finding his army hard pressed, seized spear and buckler, fought
while he reorganized his men, and snatched victory from
defeat?—when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of Austrian
spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed to
freedom?—when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in
which he was personally engaged?—when Wellington fought in many
climes without ever being conquered?—when Ney, on a hundred fields,
changed apparent disaster into brilliant triumph?—when Perry left
the disabled
Lawrence, rowed to the
Niagara, and
silenced the British guns?—when Sheridan arrived from Winchester
just as the Union retreat was becoming a rout, and turned the tide
by riding along the line?—when Sherman, though sorely pressed,
signaled his men to hold the fort, and they, knowing that their
leader was coming, held it?
History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized
occasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less
resolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the world
before them.
True, there has been but one Napoleon; but, on the other hand, the
Alps that oppose the progress of the average American youth are not
as high or dangerous as the summits crossed by the great
Corsican.
Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities.
Seize common
occasions and make them great.
On the morning of September 6, 1838, a young woman in the Longstone
Lighthouse, between England and Scotland, was awakened by shrieks
of agony rising above the roar of wind and wave. A storm of
unwonted fury was raging, and her parents could not hear the cries;
but a telescope showed nine human beings clinging to the windlass
of a wrecked vessel whose bow was hanging on the rocks half a mile
away. "We can do nothing," said William Darling, the light-keeper.
"Ah, yes, we must go to the rescue," exclaimed his daughter,
pleading tearfully with both father and mother, until the former
replied: "Very well, Grace, I will let you persuade me, though it
is against my better judgment." Like a feather in a whirlwind the
little boat was tossed on the tumultuous sea, but, borne on the
blast that swept the cruel surge, the shrieks of those shipwrecked
sailors seemed to change her weak sinews into cords of steel.
Strength hitherto unsuspected came from somewhere, and the heroic
girl pulled one oar in even time with her father. At length the
nine were safely on board. "God bless you; but ye're a bonny
English lass," said one poor fellow, as he looked wonderingly upon
this marvelous girl, who that day had done a deed which added more
to England's glory than the exploits of many of her monarchs.
"If you will let me try, I think I can make something that will
do," said a boy who had been employed as a scullion at the mansion
of Signer Faliero, as the story is told by George Cary Eggleston. A
large company had been invited to a banquet, and just before the
hour the confectioner, who had been making a large ornament for the
table, sent word that he had spoiled the piece. "You!" exclaimed
the head servant, in astonishment; "and who are you?" "I am Antonio
Canova, the grandson of Pisano, the stone-cutter," replied the
pale-faced little fellow.
"And pray, what can you do?" asked the major-domo. "I can make you
something that will do for the middle of the table, if you'll let
me try." The servant was at his wits' end, so he told Antonio to go
ahead and see what he could do. Calling for some butter, the
scullion quickly molded a large crouching lion, which the admiring
major-domo placed upon the table.
Dinner was announced, and many of the most noted merchants,
princes, and noblemen of Venice were ushered into the dining-room.
Among them were skilled critics of art work. When their eyes fell
upon the butter lion, they forgot the purpose for which they had
come in their wonder at such a work of genius. They looked at the
lion long and carefully, and asked Signer Faliero what great
sculptor had been persuaded to waste his skill upon such a
temporary material. Faliero could not tell; so he asked the head
servant, who brought Antonio before the company.
When the distinguished guests learned that the lion had been made
in a short time by a scullion, the dinner was turned into a feast
in his honor. The rich host declared that he would pay the boy's
expenses under the best masters, and he kept his word. Antonio was
not spoiled by his good fortune, but remained at heart the same
simple, earnest, faithful boy who had tried so hard to become a
good stone-cutter in the shop of Pisano. Some may not have heard
how the boy Antonio took advantage of this first great opportunity;
but all know of Canova, one of the greatest sculptors of all
time.
Weak men wait for opportunities, strong men make them.
"The best men," says E. H. Chapin, "are not those who have waited
for chances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered
the chance; and made chance the servitor."
There may not be one chance in a million that you will ever receive
unusual aid; but opportunities are often presented which you can
improve to good advantage, if you will only
act.
The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating
mind. Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every lesson in
school or college is an opportunity. Every examination is a chance
in life. Every patient is an opportunity. Every newspaper article
is an opportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is
an opportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity,—an
opportunity to be polite,—an opportunity to be manly,—an
opportunity to be honest,—an opportunity to make friends. Every
proof of confidence in you is a great opportunity. Every
responsibility thrust upon your strength and your honor is
priceless. Existence is the privilege of effort, and when that
privilege is met like a man, opportunities to succeed along the
line of your aptitude will come faster than you can use them. If a
slave like Fred Douglass, who did not even own his body, can
elevate himself into an orator, editor, statesman, what ought the
poorest white boy to do, who is rich in opportunities compared with
Douglass?
It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining
that he has no time or opportunity. Some young men will make more
out of the odds and ends of opportunities which many carelessly
throw away than other will get out of a whole life-time. Like bees,
they extract honey from every flower. Every person they meet, every
circumstance of the day, adds something to their store of useful
knowledge or personal power.
"There is nobody whom Fortune does not visit once in his life,"
says a cardinal; "but when she finds he is not ready to receive
her, she goes in at the door and out at the window."
Cornelius Vanderbilt saw his opportunity in the steamboat, and
determined to identify himself with steam navigation. To the
surprise of all his friends, he abandoned his prosperous business
and took command of one of the first steamboats launched, at a
salary of one thousand dollars a year. Livingston and Fulton had
acquired the sole right to navigate New York waters by steam, but
Vanderbilt thought the law unconstitutional, and defied it until it
was repealed. He soon became a steamboat owner. When the government
was paying a large subsidy for carrying the European mails, he
offered to carry them free and give better service. His offer was
accepted, and in this way he soon built up an enormous freight and
passenger traffic.
Foreseeing the great future of railroads in a country like ours, he
plunged into railroad enterprises with all his might, laying the
foundation for the vast Vanderbilt system of to-day.
Young Philip Armour joined the long caravan of Forty-Niners, and
crossed the "Great American Desert" with all his possessions in a
prairie schooner drawn by mules. Hard work and steady gains
carefully saved in the mines enabled him to start, six years later,
in the grain and warehouse business in Milwaukee. In nine years he
made five hundred thousand dollars. But he saw his great
opportunity in Grant's order, "On to Richmond." One morning in 1864
he knocked at the door of Plankinton, partner in his venture as a
pork packer. "I am going to take the next train to New York," said
he, "to sell pork 'short.' Grant and Sherman have the rebellion by
the throat, and pork will go down to twelve dollars a barrel." This
was his opportunity. He went to New York and offered pork in large
quantities at forty dollars per barrel. It was eagerly taken. The
shrewd Wall Street speculators laughed at the young Westerner, and
told him pork would go to sixty dollars, for the war was not nearly
over. Mr. Armour, however, kept on selling, Grant continued to
advance. Richmond fell, pork fell with it to twelve dollars a
barrel, and Mr. Armour cleared two millions of dollars.
John D. Rockefeller saw his opportunity in petroleum. He could see
a large population in this country with very poor lights. Petroleum
was plentiful, but the refining process was so crude that the
product was inferior, and not wholly safe. Here was Rockefeller's
chance. Taking into partnership Samuel Andrews, the porter in a
machine shop where both men had worked, he started a single barrel
"still" in 1870, using an improved process discovered by his
partner. They made a superior grade of oil and prospered rapidly.
They admitted a third partner, Mr. Flagler, but Andrews soon became
dissatisfied. "What will you take for your interest?" asked
Rockefeller. Andrews wrote carelessly on a piece of paper, "One
million dollars." Within twenty-four hours Mr. Rockefeller handed
him the amount, saying, "Cheaper at one million than ten." In
twenty years the business of the little refinery, scarcely worth
one thousand dollars for building and apparatus, had grown into the
Standard Oil Trust, capitalized at ninety millions of dollars, with
stock quoted at 170, giving a market value of one hundred and fifty
millions.
These are illustrations of seizing opportunity for the purpose of
making money. But fortunately there is a new generation of
electricians, of engineers, of scholars, of artists, of authors,
and of poets, who find opportunities, thick as thistles, for doing
something
nobler than merely amassing riches. Wealth is not
an end to strive for, but an opportunity; not the climax of a man's
career, but an incident.
Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker lady, saw her opportunity in the
prisons of England. From three hundred to four hundred half-naked
women, as late as 1813, would often be huddled in a single ward of
Newgate, London, awaiting trial. They had neither beds nor bedding,
but women, old and young, and little girls, slept in filth and rags
on the floor. No one seemed to care for them, and the Government
merely furnished food to keep them alive. Mrs. Fry visited Newgate,
calmed the howling mob, and told them she wished to establish a
school for the young women and the girls, and asked them to select
a schoolmistress from their own number. They were amazed, but chose
a young woman who had been committed for stealing a watch. In three
months these "wild beasts," as they were sometimes called, became
harmless and kind. The reform spread until the Government legalized
the system, and good women throughout Great Britain became
interested in the work of educating and clothing these outcasts.
Fourscore years have passed, and her plan has been adopted
throughout the civilized world.
A boy in England had been run over by a car, and the bright blood
spurted from a severed artery. No one seemed to know what to do
until another boy, Astley Cooper, took his handkerchief and stopped
the bleeding by pressure above the wound. The praise which he
received for thus saving the boy's life encouraging him to become a
surgeon, the foremost of his day.
"The time comes to the young surgeon," says Arnold, "when, after
long waiting, and patient study and experiment, he is suddenly
confronted with his first critical operation. The great surgeon is
away. Time is pressing. Life and death hang in the balance. Is he
equal to the emergency? Can he fill the great surgeon's place, and
do his work? If he can, he is the one of all others who is wanted.
His opportunity confronts him. He and it are face to face.
Shall he confess his ignorance and inability, or step into fame and
fortune? It is for him to say."
Are you prepared for a great opportunity?
"Hawthorne dined one day with Longfellow," said James T. Fields,
"and brought a friend, with him from Salem. After dinner the friend
said, 'I have been trying to persuade Hawthorne to write a story
based upon a legend of Acadia, and still current there,—the legend
of a girl who, in the dispersion of the Acadians, was separated
from her lover, and passed her life in waiting and seeking for him,
and only found him dying in a hospital when both were old.'
Longfellow wondered that the legend did not strike the fancy of
Hawthorne, and he said to him, 'If you have really made up your
mind not to use it for a story, will you let me have it for a
poem?' To this Hawthorne consented, and promised, moreover, not to
treat the subject in prose till Longfellow had seen what he could
do with it in verse. Longfellow seized his opportunity and gave to
the world 'Evangeline, or the Exile of the Acadians.'"
Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will
never fail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for
assistance; open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon
which to bestow their gifts; open hands will never lack for noble
work to do.
Everybody had noticed the overflow when a solid is immersed in a
vessel filled with water, although no one had made use of his
knowledge that the body displaces its exact bulk of liquid; but
when Archimedes observed the fact, he perceived therein an easy
method of finding the cubical contents of objects, however
irregular in shape.
Everybody knew how steadily a suspended weight, when moved, sways
back and forth until friction and the resistance of the air bring
it to rest, yet no one considered this information of the slightest
practical importance; but the boy Galileo, as he watched a lamp
left swinging by accident in the cathedral at Pisa, saw in the
regularity of those oscillations the useful principle of the
pendulum. Even the iron doors of a prison were not enough to shut
him out from research. He experimented with the straw of his cell,
and learned valuable lessons about the relative strength of tubes
and rods of equal diameters.
For ages astronomers had been familiar with the rings of Saturn,
and regarded them merely as curious exceptions to the supposed law
of planetary formation; but Laplace saw that, instead of being
exceptions, they are the sole remaining visible evidences of
certain stages in the invariable process of star manufacture, and
from their mute testimony he added a valuable chapter to the
scientific history of Creation.
There was not a sailor in Europe who had not wondered what might
lie beyond the Western Ocean, but it remained for Columbus to steer
boldly out into an unknown sea and discover a new world.
Innumerable apples had fallen from trees, often hitting heedless
men on the head as if to set them thinking, but Newton was the
first to realize that they fall to the earth by the same law which
holds the planets in their courses and prevents the momentum of all
the atoms in the universe from hurling them wildly back to
chaos.
Lightning had dazzled the eyes, and thunder had jarred the ears of
men since the days of Adam, in the vain attempt to call their
attention to the all-pervading and tremendous energy of
electricity; but the discharges of Heaven's artillery were seen and
heard only by the eye and ear of terror until Franklin, by a simple
experiment, proved that lightning is but one manifestation of a
resistless yet controllable force, abundant as air and water.
Like many others, these men are considered great, simply because
they improved opportunities common to the whole human race. Read
the story of any successful man and mark its moral, told thousands
of years ago by Solomon: "Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? he shall stand before kings." This proverb is well
illustrated by the career of the industrious Franklin, for he stood
before five kings and dined with two.
He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit
in opportunity for himself and others. Every one who has labored
honestly in the past has aided to place knowledge and comfort
within the reach of a constantly increasing number.
Avenues greater in number, wider in extent, easier of access than
ever before existed, stand open to the sober, frugal, energetic and
able mechanic, to the educated youth, to the office boy and to the
clerk—avenues through which they can reap greater successes than
ever before within the reach of these classes in the history of the
world. A little while ago there were only three or four
professions—now there are fifty. And of trades, where there was
one, there are a hundred now.
"What is its name?" asked a visitor in a studio, when shown, among
many gods, one whose face was concealed by hair, and which had
wings on its feet. "Opportunity," replied the sculptor. "Why is its
face hidden?" "Because men seldom know him when he comes to them."
"Why has he wings on his feet?" "Because he is soon gone, and once
gone, cannot be overtaken."
"Opportunity has hair in front," says a Latin author; "behind she
is bald; if you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her, but,
if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her
again."
But what is the best opportunity to him who cannot or will not use
it?
"It was my lot," said a shipmaster, "to fall in with the ill-fated
steamer
Central America. The night was closing in, the sea
rolling high; but I hailed the crippled steamer and asked if they
needed help. 'I am in a sinking condition,' cried Captain Herndon.
'Had you not better send your passengers on board directly?' I
asked. 'Will you not lay by me until morning?' replied Captain
Herndon. 'I will try,' I answered 'but had you not better send your
passengers on board
now?' 'Lay by me till morning,' again
shouted Captain Herndon.
"I tried to lay by him, but at night, such was the heavy roll of
the sea, I could not keep my position, and I never saw the steamer
again. In an hour and a half after he said, 'Lay by me till
morning,' his vessel, with its living freight, went down. The
captain and crew and most of the passengers found a grave in the
deep."
Captain Herndon appreciated the value of the opportunity he had
neglected when it was beyond his reach, but of what avail was the
bitterness of his self-reproach when his last moments came? How
many lives were sacrificed to his unintelligent hopefulness and
indecision! Like him the feeble, the sluggish, and the purposeless
too often see no meaning in the happiest occasions, until too late
they learn the old lesson that the mill can never grind with the
water which has passed.
Such people are always a little too late or a little too early in
everything they attempt. "They have three hands apiece," said John
B. Gough; "a right hand, a left hand, and a little behindhand." As
boys, they were late for school, and unpunctual in their home
duties. That is the way the habit is acquired; and now, when
responsibility claims them, they think that if they had only gone
yesterday they would have obtained the situation, or they can
probably get one to-morrow. They remember plenty of chances to make
money, or know how to make it some other time than now; they see
how to improve themselves or help others in the future, but
perceive no opportunity in the present. They cannot
seize their
opportunity.
Joe Stoker, rear brakeman on the —— accommodation train, was
exceedingly popular with all the railroad men. The passengers liked
him, too, for he was eager to please and always ready to answer
questions. But he did not realize the full responsibility of his
position. He "took the world easy," and occasionally tippled; and
if any one remonstrated, he would give one of his brightest smiles,
and reply, in such a good-natured way that the friend would think
he had over-estimated the danger: "Thank you. I'm all right. Don't
you worry."
One evening there was a heavy snowstorm, and his train was delayed.
Joe complained of extra duties because of the storm, and slyly
sipped occasional draughts from a flat bottle. Soon he became quite
jolly; but the conductor and engineer of the train were both
vigilant and anxious.
Between two stations the train came to a quick halt. The engine had
blown out its cylinder head, and an express was due in a few
minutes upon the same track. The conductor hurried to the rear car,
and ordered Joe back with a red light. The brakeman laughed and
said:
"There's no hurry. Wait till I get my overcoat."
The conductor answered gravely, "Don't stop a minute, Joe. The
express is due."
"All right," said Joe, smilingly. The conductor then hurried
forward to the engine.
But the brakeman did not go at once. He stopped to put on his
overcoat. Then he took another sip from the flat bottle to keep the
cold out. Then he slowly grasped the lantern and, whistling, moved
leisurely down the track.
He had not gone ten paces before he heard the puffing of the
express. Then he ran for the curve, but it was too late. In a
horrible minute the engine of the express had telescoped the
standing train, and the shrieks of the mangled passengers mingled
with the hissing escape of steam.
Later on, when they asked for Joe, he had disappeared; but the next
day he was found in a barn, delirious, swinging an empty lantern in
front of an imaginary train, and crying, "Oh, that I had!"
He was taken home, and afterwards to an asylum, and there is no
sadder sound in that sad place than the unceasing moan, "Oh, that I
had! Oh, that I had!" of the unfortunate brakeman, whose criminal
indulgence brought disaster to many lives.
"Oh, that I had!" or "Oh, that I had not!" is the silent cry of
many a man who would give life itself for the opportunity to go
back and retrieve some long-past error.
"There are moments," says Dean Alford, "which are worth more than
years. We cannot help it. There is no proportion between spaces of
time in importance nor in value. A stray, unthought-of five minutes
may contain the event of a life. And this all-important moment—who
can tell when it will be upon us?"
"What we call a turning-point," says Arnold, "is simply an occasion
which sums up and brings to a result previous training. Accidental
circumstances are nothing except to men who have been trained to
take advantage of them."
The trouble with us is that we are ever looking for a princely
chance of acquiring riches, or fame, or worth. We are dazzled by
what Emerson calls the "shallow Americanism" of the day. We are
expecting mastery without apprenticeship, knowledge without study,
and riches by credit.
Young men and women, why stand ye here all the day idle? Was the
land all occupied before you were born? Has the earth ceased to
yield its increase? Are the seats all taken? the positions all
filled? the chances all gone? Are the resources of your country
fully developed? Are the secrets of nature all mastered? Is there
no way in which you can utilize these passing moments to improve
yourself or benefit others? Is the competition of modern existence
so fierce that you must be content simply to gain an honest living?
Have you received the gift of life in this progressive age, wherein
all the experience of the past is garnered for your inspiration,
merely that you may increase by one the sum total of purely animal
existence?
Born in an age and country in which knowledge and opportunity
abound as never before, how can you sit with folded hands, asking
God's aid in work for which He has already given you the necessary
faculties and strength? Even when the Chosen People supposed their
progress checked by the Red Sea, and their leader paused for Divine
help, the Lord said, "Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the
children of Israel,
that they go forward."
With the world full of work that needs to be done; with human
nature so constituted that often a pleasant word or a trifling
assistance may stem the tide of disaster for some fellow man, or
clear his path to success; with our own faculties so arranged that
in honest, earnest, persistent endeavor we find our highest good;
and with countless noble examples to encourage us to dare and to
do, each moment brings us to the threshold of some new
opportunity.
Don't
wait for your opportunity.
Make it,—make it as
the shepherd-boy Ferguson made his when he calculated the distances
of the stars with a handful of glass beads on a string. Make it as
George Stephenson made his when he mastered the rules of
mathematics with a bit of chalk on the grimy sides of the coal
wagons in the mines. Make it, as Napoleon made his in a hundred
"impossible" situations. Make it, as
all leaders of men, in
war and in peace, have made their chances of success. Golden
opportunities are nothing to laziness, but industry makes the
commonest chances golden.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
"'Tis never offered twice; seize, then, the hour
When fortune smiles, and duty points the way;
Nor shrink aside to 'scape the specter fear,
Nor pause, though pleasure beckon from her bower;
But bravely bear thee onward to the goal."
