Boy Wanted

There are many echoes in the world, but few voices. – Goethe.

Consequences are unpitying. – George Eliot.

But it is to be remembered that the youth who does not think well of himself is not likely to do well. “Ability, learning, accomplishment, opportunity, are all well,” says Mathews, “but they do not, of themselves, insure success. Thousands have all these, and live and die without benefiting themselves or others. On the other hand, men of mediocre talents, often scale the dizzy steeps of excellence and fame because they have firm faith and high resolve. It is this solid faith in one’s mission – the rooted belief that it is the one thing to which he has been called, – this enthusiasm, attracting an Agassiz to the Alps or the Amazon, impelling a Pliny to explore the volcano in which he is to lose his life, and nerving a Vernet, when tossing in a fierce tempest, to sketch the waste of waters, and even the wave that is leaping up to devour him, – that marks the heroic spirit; and, wherever it is found, success, sooner or later, is almost inevitable.”

They who wish to sing always find a song. – Swedish.

The youth who will start out in life’s morning with a well-defined idea of the goal he wishes to gain, and who will keep going in the right direction need have little fear that his journey will finally end in

THE VALLEY OF NEVER

Whoever in the darkness lighteth another with a lamp, lighteth himself also. – Auerbach.

The city of Is sets on top of a hillAnd if you would learn of its beautyTake Right-Away street and keep going untilYou pass through the gateway of Duty.But some miss the way, though the guide-board is plain,And leisurely wander forever,Sad-hearted and weary, down By-and-By laneThat leads to the Valley of Never.

Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and good, and dwell as little as possible on the dark and base. – Cecil.

If you start in the morning and follow the sunWith a heart that is earnest and cheery,The way is so short that your journey is doneBefore you have time to be weary.But wait till the day is beginning to waneAnd then, though you rightly endeavor,You are likely to wander down By-and-By laneThat leads to the Valley of Never.

A little integrity is better than any career. – Emerson.

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. – Mark Twain.

Sweep first before your own door, before you sweep the doorsteps of your neighbors. – Swedish.

When we come to observe life very closely we learn that the law of recompense is always in operation, and that when all things are considered, one man’s lot does not seem so much better or another’s so much worse than the fortune of those about him as a superficial glance might lead us to think. Says Hamerton: “I used to believe a great deal more in opportunities and less in application than I do now. Time and health are needed, but with these there are always opportunities. Rich people have a fancy for spending money very uselessly on their culture because it seems to them more valuable when it has been costly; but the truth is, that by the blessing of good and cheap literature, intellectual light has become almost as accessible as daylight. I have a rich friend who travels more, and buys more costly things than I do, but he does not really learn more or advance farther in the twelvemonth. If my days are fully occupied, what has he to set against them? only other well-occupied days, no more. If he is getting benefit at St. Petersburg he is missing the benefit I am getting round my house, and in it. The sum of the year’s benefit seems to be surprisingly alike in both cases. So if you are reading a piece of thoroughly good literature, Baron Rothschild may possibly be as well occupied as you – he is certainly not better occupied. When I open a noble volume I say to myself, ‘Now the only Croesus that I envy is he who is reading a better book than this.’”

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counsellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius. – Addison.

There is many a boy who is quite sure the neighbor’s boy has an easier time and a better prospect of success. Grown-ups, too, are frequently of the opinion that they could do so much better if they were in somebody else’s shoes. Between the success which others attain and that which we achieve, we can very readily distinguish

THE DIFFERENCE

Calmness is a great advantage. – Herbert.

When the other fellow gets rich it’s luck,Just blundering luck that brings him gains,But when we win it’s a case of pluckWith intelligent effort and lots of brains.

Man becomes greater in proportion as he learns to know himself and his faculty. Let him once become conscious of what he is, and he will soon learn to be what he should. – Schelling.

The country boy is sure that if he could get into the large city where there are more and greater chances for doing things he would make a great success. The city boy is quite as certain that if he could get out into a country town where the competition is not so fierce and where there is more room to grow he would do something worth while. In discussing this subject, Edward Bok says: “It is the man, not the place that counts. The magnet of worth is the drawing power in business. It is what you are, not where you are. If a young man has the right stuff in him, he need not fear where he lives or does his business. Many a large man has expanded in a small place. The idea that a small place retards a man’s progress is pure nonsense. If the community does not offer facilities for a growing business, they can be brought to it. Proper force can do anything. All that is needed is right direction. The vast majority of people are like sheep, they follow a leader.”

Men must know that in this theater of man’s it remaineth only to God and angels to be lookers-on. – Bacon.

It is no man’s business whether he is a genius or not; work he must, whatever he is, but quietly and steadily. – Ruskin.

For the solace and enlightenment of those who think they are the victims of an unkind fortune and that conditions are better elsewhere I herewith offer Deacon Watts’s remarks concerning

“YENDER GRASS”

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a thought of fame. – Longfellow.

“This world is full of ‘yender grass,’” says Deacon Watts to me;“When I’m a-mowin’ in the field, the grass close by,” says he,“Is short and thin and full of weeds; but over yender, why,It looks to me as if the grass is thick and smooth and high.But sakes alive! that ain’t the case, for, when I mow to whereThe grass I saw from far away looked all so smooth and fair,I find it’s jest as short and thin as all the rest, or wuss;And that’s the way the things of earth keep on a-foolin’ us!

Be not simply good, be good for something. – Thoreau.

Progress depends upon what we are, rather than upon what we may encounter. One man is stopped by a sapling lying across the road; another, passing that way, picks up the hindrance and converts it into a help in crossing the brook just ahead. – Trumbull.

“’Bout every day you’ll hear some man complainin’ of his lot,And tellin’, if he’d had a chance like other people, whatHe might have been! He’d like to know how he can ever winWhen all the grass that comes his way is all so short and thin.But over in the neighbors’ fields, why, he can plainly seeThat they’re in clover plumb knee-deep and sweet as sweet can be!At times it’s hard to tell if things are made of gold or brass;Some men can’t see them distant fields are full of ‘yender grass.’

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength. – Beecher.

Great is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated; it is the highest achievement of man. – Carlyle.

“I’ve learned one thing in makin’ hay, and that’s to fill my mowWith any grass that I can get to harvest here and now.The ‘yender grass’ that ’way ahead is wavin’ in its prideI find ain’t very fillin’ by the time it’s cut and dried.Hope springs eternal, so they say, within the human breast:Man never is, the sayin’ goes, but always to be, blest.So my advice is, Don’t you let your present chances pass,A-thinkin’ by and by you’ll reap your fill of ‘yender grass.’”

CHAPTER VIII

“TRIFLES”

It is ours to climb and dare. – Frederick Lawrence Knowles.

“Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle.” The saying is old but the truth is ever new.

Oh, sweet is life when youth is in the blood. – Denis McCarthy.

It is the little things that count, day by day, in the forming of character. The way in which we employ our moments finally becomes the way in which we employ our years.

Down in the busy thoroughfares are boys the world shall know some day. – Samuel Ellsworth Kiser.

As a matter of course every boy will, if he can, do some big, beautiful thing out there in the years to come. But it is a foregone conclusion that every boy must do a vast number of little things before he shall do the larger things. The “trifles” are always at hand waiting to be done, day after day, year after year. And it is the way in which a boy does these little things that gives him the standing he holds in the estimation of those with whom he is intimately associated.

“As the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” A habit is easy to form but hard to break. Yet the strongest of habits are formed just a little at a time – a small strand is added each day until there is a mighty cable that cannot be broken except by a mighty effort. If it is a good habit, its strength makes it all the better! If it is a bad habit, its strength makes it so much the worse.

To him who presses on, at each degree new visions rise. – Julia Ward Howe.

To doubt is failure, and to dare, success. – Frederick Lawrence Knowles.

It’s nothing against you to fall down flat, but to lie there is disgrace. – Edmund Vance Cooke.

Where is the boy who cannot see the fallacy in such illogical reasoning as this: “Now, I will be careless while I am young so that I may be careful when I am older. I will remain ignorant and poorly informed while I am a boy, so that I may be wise when I am a man. I will bend one way while I am a twig so that I shall incline in another direction when I become a tree. I will do wrong things while my character is being formed so that I may do right things when my habits become fixed.” All such reasoning is very, very foolish, isn’t it? And yet there are some illogical youths who deem it will be easy to have one character and disposition as boys and quite a different one when they come to be men. By some strange hocus-pocus they hope to be able to sow a crop of “wild oats” and later on reap a harvest of good wheat. It cannot be done.

Do it right now and do it well. – John Townsend Trowbridge.

Any farmer’s boy will tell you that “as ye sow, so shall ye reap.” When the farmer wishes to harvest wheat he does not sow oats. When he wishes a crop of potatoes he does not plant gourds. He has learned that what he plants in the spring he will harvest in the autumn. It is equally as true of life. That which we sow in youth we reap in our maturer years. We must not try to deceive nature and our own consciences. We shall get back from the years what we give to the years.

Condemn no creed! Dig deep beneath the sod and at the root thou’lt find the truth of God. – Alicia K. Van Buren.

The boy who early gets into the habit of doing things right is pretty sure to go on doing them so all his life, and without much effort on his part. The will is strengthened by exercise in the same manner as are the muscles. We learn to do easily that which we do often.

It is adversity, not prosperity, which breeds men; as it is the storm, and not the calm, which makes the mariner. – Melvin L. Severy.

The slow long way may be the best. – Nathan Haskell Dole.

He who lifts his brother man in turn is lifted by him. – John Townsend Trowbridge.

As the twig is archetypal of the tree, so childhood builds the ladder up which manhood climbs. – Melvin L. Severy.

The youth who says “No” to little temptations will, later on in life, be perfectly able to say “No” to temptations of any size. And how many a man’s career has been made glorious simply because he learned, while a youth, to say “No” whenever his moral conscience told him it was the thing he should say! How true are the teachings of the wise moralist who tells us: “A very little word is ‘No.’ It is composed of but two letters and forms only one syllable. In meaning it is so definite as to defy misunderstanding. Your lips find its articulation easy. Diminutive in size, evident in import, easy of utterance, frequent in use, and necessary in ordinary speech, it seems one of the simplest and most harmless of all words. Yet there are those to whom it is almost a terror. Its sound makes them afraid. They would expurgate it from their vocabulary if they could. The little monosyllable sticks in their throat. Their pliable and easy temper inclines them to conformity, and frequently works their bane. Assailed by the solicitations of pleasure they are sure to yield, for at once and resolutely they will not repeat ‘No!’ Plied with the intoxicating cup they seldom overcome, for their facile nature refuses to express itself in ‘No!’ Encountering temptation in the hard and duteous path they are likely to falter and fall, for they have not the boldness to speak out the decided negative ‘No!’ Amid the mists of time, and involved in the labyrinthine mazes of error, they are liable to forget eternal verities and join in the ribald jest, for they have not been accustomed to utter an emphatic ‘No!’ All the noble souls and heroes of history have held themselves ready, whenever it was demanded, to say ‘No!’ The poet said ‘No!’ to the sloth and indolence which was consuming his precious hours, and wove for himself in heavenly song a garland of immortality.”

All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own. – Edwin Markham.

The greatest, strongest, most skilled is he who knows how to wait, and wait patiently. – Charles the Ninth.

“No” might seem to be but a mere trifle of a word yet the boy who learns to say it on every right occasion has already conquered many of the foes that are likely to beset him along life’s pathway. Every boy should cultivate his will until it is strong enough for him to depend upon it at all times. With the proper amount of will he is sure to have sufficient “won’t” to resist all the temptations that wrong may offer him.

The man in whom others believe is a power, but if he believes in himself he is doubly powerful. – Willis George Emerson.

In developing a strength that enables him to say “No!” to wrong things a boy becomes strong enough to say “Yes!” to right things. His “I won’t!” with which he meets wrong suggestions engenders his “I will!” toward the wholesome and commendable undertakings in which he should be interested.

One forgives everything in him who forgives himself nothing. – Chinese.

When a boy has learned to say, and to feel the strength that is in the words, “I will!” he ceases to make use of the words, “I wish,” for his will is sufficient to make his wish a living reality. And what a world of difference there is between the involved meanings of the words,

“I WISH” AND “I WILL”

Not in rewards, but in the strength to strive, the blessing lies. – John Townsend Trowbridge.

“I Wish” and “I Will,” so my grandmother says,Were two little boys in the long, long ago,And “I Wish” used to sigh while “I Will” used to tryFor the things he desired, at least that’s what myGrandma tells me, and she ought to know.“I Wish” was so weak, so my grandmother says,That he longed to have someone to help him about,And while he’d stand still and look up at the hillAnd sigh to be there to go coasting, “I Will”Would glide past him with many a shout.

It makes considerable difference whether a man talks bigger than he is, or is bigger than he talks. – Patrick Flynn.

They grew to be men, so my grandmother says,And all that “I Wish” ever did was to dream —To dream, and to sigh that life’s hill was so high,While “I Will” went to work and soon learned, if we try,Hills are never so steep as they seem.“I Wish” lived in want, so my grandmother says,But “I Will” had enough and a portion to spare:Whatever he thought was worth winning he soughtWith an earnest and patient endeavor that broughtOf blessings a bountiful share.

No man doth safely rule but he that hath learned gladly to obey. – Thomas à Kempis.

And whenever my grandma hears any one “wish,”A method she seeks, in his mind to instill,For increasing his joys, and she straightway employsThe lesson she learned from the two little boysWhose names were “I Wish” and “I Will.”

By varied discipline man slowly learns his part in what the Master Mind has planned. – Nathan Haskell Dole.

“Trifles” are the beginnings of things which finally develop into all that is worth while.

The acorn is a trifle, yet within it is hidden an oak tree, and a whole forest of oak trees. The tiny little brooklet is only a trifle yet it flows on and on till it becomes a mighty river.

It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which indeed is possible, but to fly from other men’s badness, which is impossible. – Marcus Aurelius.

The first rude little pencil sketch made by the child that has an inborn love of drawing is but a trifle, yet it may be the beginning of an art career that shall brighten the whole world.

Yet with steadfast courage that rather would die than turn back. – Nathan Haskell Dole.

The first few lines written by the embryo poet constitute but a trifle, yet with a word of encouragement it may sometime be followed by songs that shall make all mankind happier and better.

One thing we must never forget, namely: that the infinitely most important work for us is the humane education of the millions who are soon to come on the stage of action. – George T. Angell.

In every sincere and earnest man’s heart God has placed a little niche where the poetic, the spectacular, and the legendary hold full sway. – Willis George Emerson.

It was just a trifling incident that developed one of the greatest vocalists the world has ever known. We are told that Jenny Lind, at the beginning of her life, was a poor, neglected little girl, homely and uncouth, living in a single room of a tumble-down house in a narrow street at Stockholm. When the humble woman who had her in charge went out to her daily labor, she was accustomed to lock Jenny in with her sole companion, a cat. One day the little girl, who was always singing to herself like a canary-bird, “because,” as she said, “the song was in her and must come out,” sat with her dumb companion at the window warbling her sweet child-like notes. She was overheard by a passing lady, who paused and listened, struck by the trill and clearness of the untutored notes. She made careful inquiry about the child and became the patroness of the little Jenny who was at once supplied with a music-teacher. She loved the art of song, and having a true genius for it she made rapid progress, surprising both patroness and teachers, and presently, became the world’s “Queen of Song.”

The generous heart should scorn a pleasure which gives others pain. – Anonymous.

Neither education nor riches can take the place of character, yet we can all get as much character as we want. – Patrick Flynn.

A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form. – Goethe.

How trifling was the incident that brought about, by a happy accident, the development of the genius which slept in the soul of the sculptor Canova! A superb banquet was being prepared in the palace of the Falieri family in Venice. The tables were already arranged, when it was discovered that a crowning ornament of some sort was required to complete the general effect of the banqueting board. Canova’s grandfather, who brought him up, was a stone-cutter, often hewing out stone ornaments for architects; and as he lived close at hand, he was hastily consulted by the steward of the Falieris. Canova chanced to go with his grandfather to view the tables, and overheard the conversation. Though but a child his quick eye and ready genius at once suggested a suitable design for the apex of the principal dishes. “Give me a plate of cold butter,” said the boy; and seating himself at a side table he rapidly moulded a lion of proper proportions, and so true to nature in its pose and detail as to astonish all present. It was put in place and proved to be the most striking ornamental feature of the feast. When the guests, on being seated, discovered the lion, they exclaimed aloud with admiration, and demanded to see at once the person who could perform such a miracle impromptu. Canova was brought before them, and his boyish person only heightened their wonder. From that hour the head of the opulent Falieri family became his kind, appreciative, liberal patron. Canova was placed under the care of the best sculptors of Venice and Rome and became a grand master of his art.

A good conscience expects to be treated with perfect confidence. – Victor Hugo.

Build new domes of thought in your mind, and presently you will find that instead of your finding the eternal life, the eternal life has found you. – Jenkin Lloyd Jones.

But it may be truthfully said that every boy does not possess some latent genius, waiting to be discovered by some one who will foster and develop it. Then there is all the more need of making the very most of the small talents one may possess. One need not be a Canova, or a Shakespeare, in order that he may become something worth while to those with whom he dwells in close association.

There is no power on earth that can enslave a man who is mentally free; no power that can free a man who is mentally enslaved. – Patrick Flynn.

Every nook and corner of the world is waiting for the fine characters that are to make it a pleasant place in which to dwell. Blest is that household, however humble, in which there are bright, manly, truthful, kind-hearted boys, ever ready to make the hours brighter, and the home dearer, by their tender thoughtfulness of those about them.

He who is plenteously provided from within, needs but little from without. – Goethe.

Are you going to win the admiration of the world, by and by?

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday. – Emerson.

Have you already won the admiration of that little, all-important world that now lies just about you? Does the mother, or father, or sister, or brother, who knows you best, hold you in the highest esteem? If you do not win the love of those who know you so well, how can you hope to be loved by the world which can never come into such close and tender relations with you?

Do not sing with a too exact correctness. Put in personality. – William Tomlins.

Do not wait for some big event out there in the years to come. Begin just here and now, by seizing upon the “trifles” that lie all about you. The great wall of solid masonry is not put into place all at once; it is laid patiently and carefully, brick by brick. So manhood must be built a “trifle” at a time until a character is established that temptation cannot totter to the earth.

Tyranny is always weakness. – James Russell Lowell.

If we see rightly and mean rightly, we shall get on, though the hand may stagger a little; but if we mean wrongly, or mean nothing, it does not matter how firm the hand is. – Ruskin.

And every boy ought to thank his lucky stars that he does not have to wait for some special occasion to offer itself before he can begin to develop the traits that shall waken the warmest regard of those about him, and bring to his own sense of well-doing the reward born of all virtue. This very day there are many “trifles” strewn in his pathway. If he shall make the most of them, larger opportunities will be vouchsafed him. The one important consideration is whether he is ready to begin to build at the present moment, and to utilize the splendid “trifles” all about him, or will procrastinate till such time as he can by some great sweep of action, establish his reputation all at once and full-born. If he has decided on the latter course he should be moved to give the most earnest and serious consideration to the startling differences that exist between