Self Help - Samuel Smiles (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📗

CHAPTER IX—MEN OF BUSINESS

“Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before

kings.”—Proverbs of Solomon.

 

“That man is 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.”

{24} 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 pedlers, 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, 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 had 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.”

 

It has, however, been a favourite fallacy with dunces in all times,

that men of genius are unfitted for business, as well as that

business occupations unfit men for the pursuits of genius. The

unhappy youth who committed suicide a few years since because he

had been “born to be a man and condemned to be a grocer,” proved by

the act that his soul was not equal even to the dignity of grocery.

For it is not the calling that degrades the man, but the man that

degrades the calling. All work that brings honest gain is

honourable, whether it be of hand or mind. The fingers may be

soiled, yet the heart remain pure; for it is not material so much

as moral dirt that defiles—greed far more than grime, and vice

than verdigris.

 

The greatest have not disdained to labour honestly and usefully for

a living, though at the same time aiming after higher things.

Thales, the first of the seven sages, Solon, the second founder of

Athens, and Hyperates, the mathematician, were all traders. Plato,

called the Divine by reason of the excellence of his wisdom,

defrayed his travelling expenses in Egypt by the profits derived

from the oil which he sold during his journey. Spinoza maintained

himself by polishing glasses while he pursued his philosophical

investigations. Linnaeus, the great botanist, prosecuted his

studies while hammering leather and making shoes. 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.

Spencer was Secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, was afterwards

Sheriff of Cork, and is said to have been shrewd and attentive in

matters of business. Milton, originally a schoolmaster, was

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 an efficient Master of the Mint; the new

coinage of 1694 having been carried on under his immediate personal

superintendence. Cowper 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 stock-jobber, 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. Baily, the

eminent astronomer, was another stockbroker; and Allen, the

chemist, was a silk manufacturer.

 

We have abundant illustrations, 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, was 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.

 

The path of success in business is usually the path of common

sense. Patient labour and application are as necessary here as in

the acquisition of knowledge or the pursuit of science. The old

Greeks said, “to become an able man in any profession, three things

are necessary—nature, study, and practice.” In business,

practice, wisely and diligently improved, is the great secret of

success. Some may make what are called “lucky hits,” but like

money earned by gambling, such “hits” may only serve to lure one to

ruin. Bacon was accustomed to say that it was in business as in

ways—the nearest way was commonly the foulest, and that if a man

would go the fairest way he must go somewhat about. The journey

may occupy a longer time, but the pleasure of the labour involved

by it, and the enjoyment of the results produced, will be more

genuine and unalloyed. To have a daily appointed task of even

common drudgery to do makes the rest of life feel all the sweeter.

 

The fable of the labours of Hercules is the type of all human doing

and success. Every youth should be made to feel that his happiness

and well-doing in life must necessarily rely mainly on himself and

the exercise of his own energies, rather than upon the help and

patronage of others. The late Lord Melbourne embodied a piece of

useful advice in a letter which he wrote to Lord 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.”

 

Practical industry, wisely and vigorously applied, always produces

its due effects. It carries a man onward, brings out his

individual character, and stimulates the action of others. All may

not rise equally, yet each, on the whole, very much according to

his deserts. “Though all cannot live on the piazza,” as the Tuscan

proverb has it, “every one may feel the sun.”

 

On the whole, it is not good that human nature should 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