Self Help

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It is difficult to speak in terms of too high praise of the first
geological map of England, which we owe to the industry of this
courageous man of science. An accomplished writer says of it, "It
was a work so masterly in conception and so correct in general
outline, that in principle it served as a basis not only for the
production of later maps of the British Islands, but for geological
maps of all other parts of the world, wherever they have been
undertaken. In the apartments of the Geological Society Smith's
map may yet be seen--a great historical document, old and worn,
calling for renewal of its faded tints. Let any one conversant
with the subject compare it with later works on a similar scale,
and he will find that in all essential features it will not suffer
by the comparison--the intricate anatomy of the Silurian rocks of
Wales and the north of England by Murchison and Sedgwick being the
chief additions made to his great generalizations." {20} The
genius of the Oxfordshire surveyor did not fail to be duly
recognised and honoured by men of science during his lifetime. In
1831 the Geological Society of London awarded to him the Wollaston
medal, "in consideration of his being a great original discoverer
in English geology, and especially for his being the first in this
country to discover and to teach the identification of strata, and
to determine their succession by means of their imbedded fossils."
William Smith, in his simple, earnest way, gained for himself a
name as lasting as the science he loved so well. To use the words
of the writer above quoted, "Till the manner as well as the fact of
the first appearance of successive forms of life shall be solved,
it is not easy to surmise how any discovery can be made in geology
equal in value to that which we owe to the genius of William
Smith."

Hugh Miller was a man of like observant faculties, who studied
literature as well as science with zeal and success. The book in
which he has told the story of his life, ('My Schools and
Schoolmasters'), is extremely interesting, and calculated to be
eminently useful. It is the history of the formation of a truly
noble character in the humblest condition of life; and inculcates
most powerfully the lessons of self-help, self-respect, and self-
dependence. While Hugh was but a child, his father, who was a
sailor, was drowned at sea, and he was brought up by his widowed
mother. He had a school training after a sort, but his best
teachers were the boys with whom he played, the men amongst whom he
worked, the friends and relatives with whom he lived. He read much
and miscellaneously, and picked up odd sorts of knowledge from many
quarters,--from workmen, carpenters, fishermen and sailors, and
above all, from the old boulders strewed along the shores of the
Cromarty Frith. With a big hammer which had belonged to his great-
grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy went about chipping the
stones, and accumulating specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet, and
such like. Sometimes he had a day in the woods, and there, too,
the boy's attention was excited by the peculiar geological
curiosities which came in his way. While searching among the rocks
on the beach, he was sometimes asked, in irony, by the farm
servants who came to load their carts with sea-weed, whether he
"was gettin' siller in the stanes," but was so unlucky as never to
be able to answer in the affirmative. When of a suitable age he
was apprenticed to the trade of his choice--that of a working
stonemason; and he began his labouring career in a quarry looking
out upon the Cromarty Frith. This quarry proved one of his best
schools. The remarkable geological formations which it displayed
awakened his curiosity. The bar of deep-red stone beneath, and the
bar of pale-red clay above, were noted by the young quarryman, who
even in such unpromising subjects found matter for observation and
reflection. Where other men saw nothing, he detected analogies,
differences, and peculiarities, which set him a-thinking. He
simply kept his eyes and his mind open; was sober, diligent, and
persevering; and this was the secret of his intellectual growth.

His curiosity was excited and kept alive by the curious organic
remains, principally of old and extinct species of fishes, ferns,
and ammonites, which were revealed along the coast by the washings
of the waves, or were exposed by the stroke of his mason's hammer.
He never lost sight of the subject; but went on accumulating
observations and comparing formations, until at length, many years
afterwards, when no longer a working mason, he gave to the world
his highly interesting work on the Old Red Sandstone, which at once
established his reputation as a scientific geologist. But this
work was the fruit of long years of patient observation and
research. As he modestly states in his autobiography, "the only
merit to which I lay claim in the case is that of patient research-
-a merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpass me; and this
humble faculty of patience, when rightly developed, may lead to
more extraordinary developments of idea than even genius itself."

The late John Brown, the eminent English geologist, was, like
Miller, a stonemason in his early life, serving an apprenticeship
to the trade at Colchester, and afterwards working as a journeyman
mason at Norwich. He began business as a builder on his own
account at Colchester, where by frugality and industry he secured a
competency. It was while working at his trade that his attention
was first drawn to the study of fossils and shells; and he
proceeded to make a collection of them, which afterwards grew into
one of the finest in England. His researches along the coasts of
Essex, Kent, and Sussex brought to light some magnificent remains
of the elephant and rhinoceros, the most valuable of which were
presented by him to the British Museum. During the last few years
of his life he devoted considerable attention to the study of the
Foraminifera in chalk, respecting which he made several interesting
discoveries. His life was useful, happy, and honoured; and he died
at Stanway, in Essex, in November 1859, at the ripe age of eighty
years.

Not long ago, Sir Roderick Murchison discovered at Thurso, in the
far north of Scotland, a profound geologist, in the person of a
baker there, named Robert Dick. When Sir Roderick called upon him
at the bakehouse in which he baked and earned his bread, Robert
Dick delineated to him, by means of flour upon the board, the
geographical features and geological phenomena of his native
county, pointing out the imperfections in the existing maps, which
he had ascertained by travelling over the country in his leisure
hours. On further inquiry, Sir Roderick ascertained that the
humble individual before him was not only a capital baker and
geologist, but a first-rate botanist. "I found," said the
President of the Geographical Society, "to my great humiliation
that the baker knew infinitely more of botanical science, ay, ten
times more, than I did; and that there were only some twenty or
thirty specimens of flowers which he had not collected. Some he
had obtained as presents, some he had purchased, but the greater
portion had been accumulated by his industry, in his native county
of Caithness; and the specimens were all arranged in the most
beautiful order, with their scientific names affixed."

Sir Roderick Murchison himself is an illustrious follower of these
and kindred branches of science. A writer in the 'Quarterly
Review' cites him as a "singular instance of a man who, having
passed the early part of his life as a soldier, never having had
the advantage, or disadvantage as the case might have been, of a
scientific training, instead of remaining a fox-hunting country
gentleman, has succeeded by his own native vigour and sagacity,
untiring industry and zeal, in making for himself a scientific
reputation that is as wide as it is likely to be lasting. He took
first of all an unexplored and difficult district at home, and, by
the labour of many years, examined its rock-formations, classed
them in natural groups, assigned to each its characteristic
assemblage of fossils, and was the first to decipher two great
chapters in the world's geological history, which must always
henceforth carry his name on their title-page. Not only so, but he
applied the knowledge thus acquired to the dissection of large
districts, both at home and abroad, so as to become the geological
discoverer of great countries which had formerly been 'terrae
incognitae.'" But Sir Roderick Murchison is not merely a
geologist. His indefatigable labours in many branches of knowledge
have contributed to render him among the most accomplished and
complete of scientific men.

CHAPTER VI--WORKERS IN ART

"If what shone afar so grand,
Turn to nothing in thy hand,
On again; the virtue lies
In struggle, not the prize."--R. M. Milnes.

"Excelle, et tu vivras."--Joubert.

Excellence in art, as in everything else, can only be achieved by
dint of painstaking labour.

There is nothing less accidental than the painting of a fine
picture or the chiselling of a noble statue. Every skilled touch
of the artist's brush or chisel, though guided by genius, is the
product of unremitting study.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry,
that he held that artistic excellence, "however expressed by
genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be acquired." Writing to
Barry he said, "Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed
any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object
from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed." And on another
occasion he said, "Those who are resolved to excel must go to their
work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night: they will
find it no play, but very hard labour." But although diligent
application is no doubt absolutely necessary for the achievement of
the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that without the
inborn genius, no amount of mere industry, however well applied,
will make an artist. The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by
self-culture, which is of more avail than all the imparted
education of the schools.

Some of the greatest artists have had to force their way upward in
the face of poverty and manifold obstructions. Illustrious
instances will at once flash upon the reader's mind. Claude
Lorraine, the pastrycook; Tintoretto, the dyer; the two
Caravaggios, the one a colour-grinder, the other a mortar-carrier
at the Vatican; Salvator Rosa, the associate of bandits; Giotto,
the peasant boy; Zingaro, the gipsy; Cavedone, turned out of doors
to beg by his father; Canova, the stone-cutter; these, and many
other well-known artists, succeeded in achieving distinction by
severe study and labour, under circumstances the most adverse.

Nor have the most distinguished artists of our own country been
born in a position of life more than ordinarily favourable to the
culture of artistic genius. Gainsborough and Bacon were the sons
of cloth-workers; Barry was an Irish sailor boy, and Maclise a
banker's apprentice at Cork; Opie and Romney, like Inigo Jones,
were carpenters; West was the son of a small Quaker farmer in
Pennsylvania; Northcote was a watchmaker, Jackson a tailor, and
Etty a printer; Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, were the sons of
clergymen; Lawrence was the son of a publican, and Turner of a
barber. Several of our painters, it is true, originally had some
connection with art, though in a very humble way,--such as Flaxman,
whose father sold plaster casts; Bird, who ornamented tea-trays;
Martin, who was a coach-painter; Wright and Gilpin, who were ship-
painters; Chantrey, who was a carver and gilder; and David Cox,
Stanfield, and Roberts, who were scene-painters.

It was not by luck or accident that these men achieved distinction,
but by sheer industry and hard work. Though some achieved wealth,
yet this was rarely, if ever, the ruling motive. Indeed, no mere
love of money could sustain the efforts of the artist in his early
career of self-denial and application. The pleasure of the pursuit
has always been its best reward; the wealth which followed but an
accident. Many noble-minded artists have preferred following the
bent of their genius, to chaffering with the public for terms.
Spagnoletto verified in his life the beautiful fiction of Xenophon,
and after he had acquired the means of luxury, preferred
withdrawing himself from their influence, and voluntarily returned
to poverty and labour. When Michael Angelo was asked his opinion
respecting a work which a painter had taken great pains to exhibit
for profit, he said, "I think that he will be a poor fellow so long
as he shows such an extreme eagerness to become rich."

Like Sir Joshua Reynolds, Michael Angelo was a great believer in
the force of labour; and he held that there was nothing which the
imagination conceived, that could not be embodied in marble, if the
hand were made vigorously to obey the mind. He was himself one of
the most indefatigable of workers; and he attributed his power of
studying for a greater number of hours than most of his
contemporaries, to his spare habits of living. A little bread and
wine was all he required for the chief part of the day when
employed at his work; and very frequently he rose in the middle of
the night to resume his labours. On these occasions, it was his
practice to fix the candle, by the light of which he chiselled, on
the summit of a paste-board cap which he wore. Sometimes he was
too wearied to undress, and he slept in his clothes, ready to
spring to his work so soon as refreshed by sleep. He had a
favourite device of an old man in a go-cart, with an hour-glass
upon it bearing the inscription, Ancora imparo! Still I am
learning.

Titian, also, was an indefatigable worker. His celebrated "Pietro
Martire" was eight years in hand, and his "Last Supper" seven. In
his letter to Charles V. he said, "I send your Majesty the 'Last
Supper' after working at it almost daily for seven years--dopo
sette anni lavorandovi quasi continuamente." Few think of the
patient labour and long training involved in the greatest works of
the artist. They seem easy and quickly accomplished, yet with how
great difficulty has this ease been acquired. "You charge me fifty
sequins," said the Venetian nobleman to the sculptor, "for a bust
that cost you only ten days' labour." "You forget," said the
artist, "that I have been thirty years learning to make that bust
in ten days." Once when Domenichino was blamed for his slowness in
finishing a picture which was bespoken, he made answer, "I am
continually painting it within myself." It was eminently
characteristic of the industry of the late Sir Augustus Callcott,
that he made not fewer than forty separate sketches in the
composition of his famous picture of "Rochester." This constant
repetition is one of the main conditions of success in art, as in
life itself.

No matter how generous nature has been in bestowing the gift of
genius, the pursuit of art is nevertheless a long and continuous
labour. Many artists have been precocious, but without diligence
their precocity would have come to nothing. The anecdote related
of West is well known. When only seven years old, struck with the
beauty of the sleeping infant of his eldest sister whilst watching
by its cradle, he ran to seek some paper and forthwith drew its
portrait in red and black ink. The little incident revealed the
artist in him, and it was found impossible to draw him from his
bent. West might have been a greater painter, had he not been
injured by too early success: his fame, though great, was not
purchased by study, trials, and difficulties, and it has not been
enduring.

Richard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged himself with tracing
figures of men and animals on the walls of his father's house, with
a burnt stick. He first directed his attention to portrait
painting; but when in Italy, calling one day at the house of
Zucarelli, and growing weary with waiting, he began painting the
scene on which his friend's chamber window looked. When Zucarelli
arrived, he was so charmed with the picture, that he asked if
Wilson had not studied landscape, to which he replied that he had
not. "Then, I advise you," said the other, "to try; for you are
sure of great success." Wilson adopted the advice, studied and
worked hard, and became our first great English landscape painter.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a boy, forgot his lessons, and took
pleasure only in drawing, for which his father was accustomed to
rebuke him. The boy was destined for the profession of physic, but
his strong instinct for art could not be repressed, and he became a
painter. Gainsborough went sketching, when a schoolboy, in the
woods of Sudbury; and at twelve he was a confirmed artist: he was
a keen observer and a hard worker,--no picturesque feature of any
scene he had once looked upon, escaping his diligent pencil.
William Blake, a hosier's son, employed himself in drawing designs
on the backs of his father's shop-bills, and making sketches on the
counter. Edward Bird, when a child only three or four years old,
would mount a chair and draw figures on the walls, which he called
French and English soldiers. A box of colours was purchased for
him, and his father, desirous of turning his love of art to
account, put him apprentice to a maker of tea-trays! Out of this
trade he gradually raised himself, by study and labour, to the rank
of a Royal Academician.

Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his lessons, took pleasure in
making drawings of the letters of the alphabet, and his school
exercises were more remarkable for the ornaments with which he
embellished them, than for the matter of the exercises themselves.
In the latter respect he was beaten by all the blockheads of the
school, but in his adornments he stood alone. His father put him
apprentice to a silversmith, where he learnt to draw, and also to
engrave spoons and forks with crests and ciphers. From silver-
chasing, he went on to teach himself engraving on copper,
principally griffins and monsters of heraldry, in the course of
which practice he became ambitious to delineate the varieties of
human character. The singular excellence which he reached in this
art, was mainly the result of careful observation and study. He
had the gift, which he sedulously cultivated, of committing to
memory the precise features of any remarkable face, and afterwards
reproducing them on paper; but if any singularly fantastic form or
outre face came in his way, he would make a sketch of it on the
spot, upon his thumb-nail, and carry it home to expand at his
leisure. Everything fantastical and original had a powerful
attraction for him, and he wandered into many out-of-the-way places
for the purpose of meeting with character. By this careful storing
of his mind, he was afterwards enabled to crowd an immense amount
of thought and treasured observation into his works. Hence it is
that Hogarth's pictures are so truthful a memorial of the
character, the manners, and even the very thoughts of the times in
which he lived. True painting, he himself observed, can only be
learnt in one school, and that is kept by Nature. But he was not a
highly cultivated man, except in his own walk. His school
education had been of the slenderest kind, scarcely even perfecting
him in the art of spelling; his self-culture did the rest. For a
long time he was in very straitened circumstances, but nevertheless
worked on with a cheerful heart. Poor though he was, he contrived
to live within his small means, and he boasted, with becoming
pride, that he was "a punctual paymaster." When he had conquered
all his difficulties and become a famous and thriving man, he loved
to dwell upon his early labours and privations, and to fight over
again the battle which ended so honourably to him as a man and so
gloriously as an artist. "I remember the time," said he on one
occasion, "when I have gone moping into the city with scarce a
shilling, but as soon as I have received ten guineas there for a
plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied out with
all the confidence of a man who had thousands in his pockets."

"Industry and perseverance" was the motto of the sculptor Banks,
which he acted on himself, and strongly recommended to others. His
well-known kindness induced many aspiring youths to call upon him
and ask for his advice and assistance; and it is related that one
day a boy called at his door to see him with this object, but the
servant, angry at the loud knock he had given, scolded him, and was
about sending him away, when Banks overhearing her, himself went
out. The little boy stood at the door with some drawings in his
hand. "What do you want with me?" asked the sculptor. "I want,
sir, if you please, to be admitted to draw at the Academy." Banks
explained that he himself could not procure his admission, but he
asked to look at the boy's drawings. Examining them, he said,
"Time enough for the Academy, my little man! go home--mind your
schooling--try to make a better drawing of the Apollo--and in a
month come again and let me see it." The boy went home--sketched
and worked with redoubled diligence--and, at the end of the month,
called again on the sculptor. The drawing was better; but again
Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study. In a
week the boy was again at his door, his drawing much improved; and
Banks bid him be of good cheer, for if spared he would distinguish
himself. The boy was Mulready; and the sculptor's augury was amply
fulfilled.

The fame of Claude Lorraine is partly explained by his
indefatigable industry. Born at Champagne, in Lorraine, of poor
parents, he was first apprenticed to a pastrycook. His brother,
who was a wood-carver, afterwards took him into his shop to learn
that trade. Having there shown indications of artistic skill, a
travelling dealer persuaded the brother to allow Claude to
accompany him to Italy. He assented, and the young man reached
Rome, where he was shortly after engaged by Agostino Tassi, the
landscape painter, as his house-servant. In that capacity Claude
first learnt landscape painting, and in course of time he began to
produce pictures. We next find him making the tour of Italy,
France, and Germany, occasionally resting by the way to paint
landscapes, and thereby replenish his purse. On returning to Rome
he found an increasing demand for his works, and his reputation at
length became European. He was unwearied in the study of nature in
her various aspects. It was his practice to spend a great part of
his time in closely copying buildings, bits of ground, trees,
leaves, and such like, which he finished in detail, keeping the
drawings by him in store for the purpose of introducing them in his
studied landscapes. He also gave close attention to the sky,
watching it for whole days from morning till night, and noting the
various changes occasioned by the passing clouds and the increasing
and waning light. By this constant practice he acquired, although
it is said very slowly, such a mastery of hand and eye as
eventually secured for him the first rank among landscape painters.

Turner, who has been styled "the English Claude," pursued a career
of like laborious industry. He was destined by his father for his
own trade of a barber, which he carried on in London, until one day
the sketch which the boy had made of a coat of arms on a silver
salver having attracted the notice of a customer whom his father
was shaving, the latter was urged to allow his son to follow his
bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow art as a
profession. Like all young artists, Turner had many difficulties
to encounter, and they were all the greater that his circumstances
were so straitened. But he was always willing to work, and to take
pains with his work, no matter how humble it might be. He was glad
to hire himself out at half-a-crown a night to wash in skies in
Indian ink upon other people's drawings, getting his supper into
the bargain. Thus he earned money and acquired expertness. Then
he took to illustrating guide-books, almanacs, and any sort of
books that wanted cheap frontispieces. "What could I have done
better?" said he afterwards; "it was first-rate practice." He did
everything carefully and conscientiously, never slurring over his
work because he was ill-remunerated for it. He aimed at learning
as well as living; always doing his best, and never leaving a
drawing without having made a step in advance upon his previous
work. A man who thus laboured was sure to do much; and his growth
in power and grasp of thought was, to use Ruskin's words, "as
steady as the increasing light of sunrise." But Turner's genius
needs no panegyric; his best monument is the noble gallery of
pictures bequeathed by him to the nation, which will ever be the
most lasting memorial of his fame.

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