GETTING ON IN THE WORLD:

CHAPTER I.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE.

Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best. SYDNEY SMITH.

Men must know that in this theatre of man's life it remaineth only to God and angels to be lookers-on. - BACON.

Toil alone could not have produced the "Paradise Lost" or the "Principia." The born dwarf never grows to the middle size. REV. R. A. WILLMOTT.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a thought of fame. -HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

N attending a concert in one of our large cities, did you ever

sour seve

violinists of the orchestra? One is all pomp, fire, bustle,. enthusiasm, energy. Now waving his bow high in the air, he silently guides the harmony; now rapidly tapping on the rest-board, he hurries the movement; and again, bringing the violin to his shoulder, he takes the leading strain, and high above the crash of sound, above the shrill blast of the trumpet, the braying of horns, the ear-piercing notes of the fife, the sobbing of oboes, the wailing of violoncellos, and all the thunders of the orchestra, are heard, distinct and clear, the shrieking notes of the first violin. Dressed in unimpeachable broadcloth, with kids and linen of immaculate purity, stamping his feet, wagging his head, nodding earnestly to the right and to the left, and beating time with mad energy, he enters heart and

soul into the music, oblivious of all things else; and all because he is the leader, and plays the first violin. Standing by his side, but upon a lower platform, and before a lower music-rest, is a patient, careworn man, who saws quietly on the strings, with the air rather of the hired laborer than of the enthusiast. His eye you never see in a fine frenzy rolling, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, nor does his facile hand run off in roulades of melody; he never wags his head, nor stamps his foot, nor labors to wreak his thoughts upon expression; but steadily and conscientiously he pours a rich undercurrent of harmony into the music, which few hear, fewer care for, but without which, losing the charm of contrast, it would be as dreary as the droning of a bagpipe, as monotonous as a picture which is all lights and no shadows. With his eye fixed on the notes, he scrapes away with diligence, not with enthusiasm ; he is moved, not by the inspiration of a master, but by the reflection that he is exchanging his notes for dollars, and that, with each quaver, he earns so much bread and butter for his family. Yet this automaton this musical machine, that plays its part so mechanically, with apparently as little interest in the result as Babbage's calculating-machine in the solution of a mathematical problem - may have been endowed by nature with as much genius and fire as that thundering Jupiter of the orchestra, the leader; but, alas! he plays second fiddle.

The world is an orchestra, and men are players. All of us are playing some part in the production of life's harmony,some wielding the baton, and fired by the sympathy of lookerson; others feeling that they are but second fiddles, humbled by conscious inferiority, and drudging on as the treadmill horse. plods through his monotonous task. Our object will be, in this series of papers, to show the reason of this inequality, and especially how, whether one plays first or second fiddle, or is gifted with talents that qualify him only to strike the cymbals or beat the drum, he may magnify his calling, and act well his part, "where all the honor lies."

We purpose, in this volume, to discuss the subject of success in life; or, in other words, to answer the question which every young man, as he enters upon his career of self-dependence, is likely to ask of himself or others, "How shall I get on in the world?" The theme is as old as the human race; yet, though volumes have been written on it, it is still new to each successive generation, and assuming, as it does, new phases with the ceaseless changes in society, must be inexhaustible. Out of the thousand topics which it offers for consideration, we shall select only those of vital interest, just notions of which are indispensable to every young man who would act well his part in the great drama of life. To the mass of men, and especially to those who are about embarking on the voyage of active life, no theme can be of deeper interest than this. A man sailing on that voyage has been compared to a vessel of war leaving port under sealed orders. He knows not, but as the ways of Providence are disclosed, to what ports he must go, or on what seas he must sail. The dangers of the voyage the sunken reefs, the icebergs, or the stormy capes, which may be his ruinare unknown. Through perilous storms and treacherous calms must he steer his unknown course, nor is there any exact chart laid down for the voyage. No man ever sailed over exactly the same route that another sailed over before him; every man who starts on the ocean of life arches his sails to an untried breeze. Like Coleridge's mariner, "he is the first that ever burst into that lonely sea.'

In looking about among the circle of our acquaintances, we are surprised to see how few have made the voyage successfully, that fewer still have reached the ports for which they sailed. Many a shallop, which sailed out of harbor noiselessly and unnoticed, has anchored at last safely in port; many a noble argosy, freighted with precious hopes, and launched with streamers flying, amid the salvos of artillery and the huzzas of thousands, has sunk beneath the waves. To what impotent conclusions, indeed, do young men of brilliant parts frequently come! What becomes of the foremost boy at the academy,

of the "senior wrangler" of the university, of the champion of the debating club, the law school, or the lyceum? Where are to be found, in the various walks of life, all of the geniuses to which almost every village periodically gives birth? along the shores of the great ocean, on whose currents we are borne with resistless sweep, are strewn the wrecks of those whose embarkation was seemingly under the very star of hope. On whatever shoals or hidden rocks they may have struck, it matters not to them; only one voyage is vouchsafed, and failure is irretrievable; but to all who come after them, an explanation of the causes of disaster is of deep interest, and may save many from a similar fate.

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Before discussing, however, the causes of shipwreck, let us anticipate a few of the objections that may meet us at the threshold. And, first, there are those who deny that success is pre-eminently desirable, or that it is by any means identical with happiness. No doubt there are many enjoyments outside of worldly success. After all, it is pleasant to lie in bed till eight o'clock in the morning, instead of turning out at five; it is pleasant to hug the chimney-corner, instead of breasting the pitiless storm; it is pleasant to pass one's evenings in the bosom of a family; pleasant, too, to taste the difference between winter and spring, fine sunsets and storms, town and country. The path of success, never “a primrose path of dalliance," is steeper and more thorny to-day than ever before. Never before in the world's history was competition in every calling and pursuit so fierce as now; never did success, in more than a moderate degree, demand for its attainment such a union of physical and intellectual qualities, — of alertness, activity, prudence, persistence, boldness, and decision,—as in this latter half of the nineteenth century. Carlyle truly says that "the race of life has become intense; the runners are treading upon each other's heels; woe be to him who stops to tie his shoestrings!" This fact alone is sufficient to show the absurdity of the opinion sometimes advanced, that success is not, as a general thing, a test of merit. In spite of the occasional tri

umphs of mediocre men and charlatans, the rule still holds, that the men who make their way to the front, becoming rich or famous by force of their personal characters, must have something more in them than impudence, and even the Hudsons and Fisks could not have won their positions without some sterling qualities, however alloyed with their opposites.

Again, it must be confessed that success does not always yield the happiness expected; that the prizes of life, like the apples of Sodom, often turn to ashes in the grasp. Of every object of human pursuit, however dazzling in the distance, it may be said as the poet has said of woman,

"The lovely toy, so fiercely sought,

Hath lost its charm by being caught."

But persons who reason thus concerning human happiness forget its true nature. They forget that it does not consist in the gratification of the desires, nor in that freedom from care, that imaginary state of repose, to which most men look so anxiously forward, and with the prospect of which their labors are lightened, but which is more languid, irksome, and insupportable than all the toils of active life. True, the objects we pursue with so much ardor are insignificant in themselves, and never fulfil our extravagant expectations; but this by no means proves them unworthy of pursuit. Properly to estimate their value, we must take into view all the pleasurable emotions they awaken prior to attainment.

"Man never is, but always to be blest,"

says the poet. That is, his true happiness consists in the means, and not in the end; in acquisition, and not in possession. The principle and source of it is not the gratification of the desires, nor does its amount depend on the frequency of such gratifications. He who cultivates a tree derives far more satisfaction from the care he bestows upon it than from the fruit. Give the huntsman his game, and the gambler the money that is staked, that they both may enjoy, without care or perplexity, the objects they pursue, and they will smile at your folly.