Self Help

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It is unnecessary further to follow the career of Granville Sharp.
He continued to labour indefatigably in all good works. He was
instrumental in founding the colony of Sierra Leone as an asylum
for rescued negroes. He laboured to ameliorate the condition of
the native Indians in the American colonies. He agitated the
enlargement and extension of the political rights of the English
people; and he endeavoured to effect the abolition of the
impressment of seamen. Granville held that the British seamen, as
well as the African negro, was entitled to the protection of the
law; and that the fact of his choosing a seafaring life did not in
any way cancel his rights and privileges as an Englishman--first
amongst which he ranked personal freedom. Mr. Sharp also laboured,
but ineffectually, to restore amity between England and her
colonies in America; and when the fratricidal war of the American
Revolution was entered on, his sense of integrity was so scrupulous
that, resolving not in any way to be concerned in so unnatural a
business, he resigned his situation at the Ordnance Office.

To the last he held to the great object of his life--the abolition
of slavery. To carry on this work, and organize the efforts of the
growing friends of the cause, the Society for the Abolition of
Slavery was founded, and new men, inspired by Sharp's example and
zeal, sprang forward to help him. His energy became theirs, and
the self-sacrificing zeal in which he had so long laboured single-
handed, became at length transfused into the nation itself. His
mantle fell upon Clarkson, upon Wilberforce, upon Brougham, and
upon Buxton, who laboured as he had done, with like energy and
stedfastness of purpose, until at length slavery was abolished
throughout the British dominions. But though the names last
mentioned may be more frequently identified with the triumph of
this great cause, the chief merit unquestionably belongs to
Granville Sharp. He was encouraged by none of the world's huzzas
when he entered upon his work. He stood alone, opposed to the
opinion of the ablest lawyers and the most rooted prejudices of the
times; and alone he fought out, by his single exertions, and at his
individual expense, the most memorable battle for the constitution
of this country and the liberties of British subjects, of which
modern times afford a record. What followed was mainly the
consequence of his indefatigable constancy. He lighted the torch
which kindled other minds, and it was handed on until the
illumination became complete.

Before the death of Granville Sharp, Clarkson had already turned
his attention to the question of Negro Slavery. He had even
selected it for the subject of a college Essay; and his mind became
so possessed by it that he could not shake it off. The spot is
pointed out near Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire, where, alighting
from his horse one day, he sat down disconsolate on the turf by the
road side, and after long thinking, determined to devote himself
wholly to the work. He translated his Essay from Latin into
English, added fresh illustrations, and published it. Then fellow
labourers gathered round him. The Society for Abolishing the Slave
Trade, unknown to him, had already been formed, and when he heard
of it he joined it. He sacrificed all his prospects in life to
prosecute this cause. Wilberforce was selected to lead in
parliament; but upon Clarkson chiefly devolved the labour of
collecting and arranging the immense mass of evidence offered in
support of the abolition. A remarkable instance of Clarkson's
sleuth-hound sort of perseverance may be mentioned. The abettors
of slavery, in the course of their defence of the system,
maintained that only such negroes as were captured in battle were
sold as slaves, and if not so sold, then they were reserved for a
still more frightful doom in their own country. Clarkson knew of
the slave-hunts conducted by the slave-traders, but had no
witnesses to prove it. Where was one to be found? Accidentally, a
gentleman whom he met on one of his journeys informed him of a
young sailor, in whose company he had been about a year before, who
had been actually engaged in one of such slave-hunting expeditions.
The gentleman did not know his name, and could but indefinitely
describe his person. He did not know where he was, further than
that he belonged to a ship of war in ordinary, but at what port he
could not tell. With this mere glimmering of information, Clarkson
determined to produce this man as a witness. He visited personally
all the seaport towns where ships in ordinary lay; boarded and
examined every ship without success, until he came to the very LAST
port, and found the young man, his prize, in the very LAST ship
that remained to be visited. The young man proved to be one of his
most valuable and effective witnesses.

During several years Clarkson conducted a correspondence with
upwards of four hundred persons, travelling more than thirty-five
thousand miles during the same time in search of evidence. He was
at length disabled and exhausted by illness, brought on by his
continuous exertions; but he was not borne from the field until his
zeal had fully awakened the public mind, and excited the ardent
sympathies of all good men on behalf of the slave.

After years of protracted struggle, the slave trade was abolished.
But still another great achievement remained to be accomplished--
the abolition of slavery itself throughout the British dominions.
And here again determined energy won the day. Of the leaders in
the cause, none was more distinguished than Fowell Buxton, who took
the position formerly occupied by Wilberforce in the House of
Commons. Buxton was a dull, heavy boy, distinguished for his
strong self-will, which first exhibited itself in violent,
domineering, and headstrong obstinacy. His father died when he was
a child; but fortunately he had a wise mother, who trained his will
with great care, constraining him to obey, but encouraging the
habit of deciding and acting for himself in matters which might
safely be left to him. His mother believed that a strong will,
directed upon worthy objects, was a valuable manly quality if
properly guided, and she acted accordingly. When others about her
commented on the boy's self-will, she would merely say, "Never
mind--he is self-willed now--you will see it will turn out well in
the end." Fowell learnt very little at school, and was regarded as
a dunce and an idler. He got other boys to do his exercises for
him, while he romped and scrambled about. He returned home at
fifteen, a great, growing, awkward lad, fond only of boating,
shooting, riding, and field sports,--spending his time principally
with the gamekeeper, a man possessed of a good heart,--an
intelligent observer of life and nature, though he could neither
read nor write. Buxton had excellent raw material in him, but he
wanted culture, training, and development. At this juncture of his
life, when his habits were being formed for good or evil, he was
happily thrown into the society of the Gurney family, distinguished
for their fine social qualities not less than for their
intellectual culture and public-spirited philanthropy. This
intercourse with the Gurneys, he used afterwards to say, gave the
colouring to his life. They encouraged his efforts at self-
culture; and when he went to the University of Dublin and gained
high honours there, the animating passion in his mind, he said,
"was to carry back to them the prizes which they prompted and
enabled me to win." He married one of the daughters of the family,
and started in life, commencing as a clerk to his uncles Hanbury,
the London brewers. His power of will, which made him so difficult
to deal with as a boy, now formed the backbone of his character,
and made him most indefatigable and energetic in whatever he
undertook. He threw his whole strength and bulk right down upon
his work; and the great giant--"Elephant Buxton" they called him,
for he stood some six feet four in height--became one of the most
vigorous and practical of men. "I could brew," he said, "one
hour,--do mathematics the next,--and shoot the next,--and each with
my whole soul." There was invincible energy and determination in
whatever he did. Admitted a partner, he became the active manager
of the concern; and the vast business which he conducted felt his
influence through every fibre, and prospered far beyond its
previous success. Nor did he allow his mind to lie fallow, for he
gave his evenings diligently to self-culture, studying and
digesting Blackstone, Montesquieu, and solid commentaries on
English law. His maxims in reading were, "never to begin a book
without finishing it;" "never to consider a book finished until it
is mastered;" and "to study everything with the whole mind."

When only thirty-two, Buxton entered parliament, and at once
assumed that position of influence there, of which every honest,
earnest, well-informed man is secure, who enters that assembly of
the first gentlemen in the world. The principal question to which
he devoted himself was the complete emancipation of the slaves in
the British colonies. He himself used to attribute the interest
which he early felt in this question to the influence of Priscilla
Gurney, one of the Earlham family,--a woman of a fine intellect and
warm heart, abounding in illustrious virtues. When on her
deathbed, in 1821, she repeatedly sent for Buxton, and urged him
"to make the cause of the slaves the great object of his life."
Her last act was to attempt to reiterate the solemn charge, and she
expired in the ineffectual effort. Buxton never forgot her
counsel; he named one of his daughters after her; and on the day on
which she was married from his house, on the 1st of August, 1834,--
the day of Negro emancipation--after his Priscilla had been
manumitted from her filial service, and left her father's home in
the company of her husband, Buxton sat down and thus wrote to a
friend: "The bride is just gone; everything has passed off to
admiration; and THERE IS NOT A SLAVE IN THE BRITISH COLONIES!"

Buxton was no genius--not a great intellectual leader nor
discoverer, but mainly an earnest, straightforward, resolute,
energetic man. Indeed, his whole character is most forcibly
expressed in his own words, which every young man might well stamp
upon his soul: "The longer I live," said he, "the more I am
certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble
and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is ENERGY--
INVINCIBLE DETERMINATION--a purpose once fixed, and then death or
victory! That quality will do anything that can be done in this
world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will
make a two-legged creature a Man without it."

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 to
work, that it may almost be set down as one of the conditions
essential to success in life. Hence, an eminent judge, when asked
what contributed most to success at the bar, replied, "Some succeed
by great talent, some by high connexions, some by miracle, but the
majority by commencing without a shilling."

We have heard of an architect of considerable accomplishments,--a
man who had improved himself by long study, and travel in the
classical lands of the East,--who came home to commence the
practice of his profession. He determined to begin anywhere,
provided he could be employed; and he accordingly undertook a
business connected with dilapidations,--one of the lowest and least
remunerative departments of the architect's calling. But he had
the good sense not to be above his trade, and he had the resolution
to work his way upward, so that he only got a fair start. One hot
day in July a friend found him sitting astride of a house roof
occupied with his dilapidation business. Drawing his hand across
his perspiring countenance, he exclaimed, "Here's a pretty business
for a man who has been all over Greece!" However, he did his work,
such as it was, thoroughly and well; he persevered until he
advanced by degrees to more remunerative branches of employment,
and eventually he rose to the highest walks of his profession.

The necessity of labour may, indeed, be regarded as the main root
and spring of all that we call progress in individuals, and
civilization in nations; and it is doubtful whether any heavier
curse could be imposed on man than the complete gratification of
all his wishes without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his
hopes, desires or struggles. The feeling that life is destitute of
any motive or necessity for action, must be of all others the most
distressing and insupportable to a rational being. The Marquis de
Spinola asking Sir Horace Vere what his brother died of, Sir Horace
replied, "He died, Sir, of having nothing to do." "Alas!" said
Spinola, "that is enough to kill any general of us all."

Those who fail in life are however very apt to assume a tone of
injured innocence, and conclude too hastily that everybody
excepting themselves has had a hand in their personal misfortunes.
An eminent writer lately published a book, in which he described
his numerous failures in business, naively admitting, at the same
time, that he was ignorant of the multiplication table; and he came
to the conclusion that the real cause of his ill-success in life
was the money-worshipping spirit of the age. Lamartine also did
not hesitate to profess his contempt for arithmetic; but, had it
been less, probably we should not have witnessed the unseemly
spectacle of the admirers of that distinguished personage engaged
in collecting subscriptions for his support in his old age.

Again, some consider themselves born to ill luck, and make up their
minds that the world invariably goes against them without any fault
on their own part. We have heard of a person of this sort, who
went so far as to declare his belief that if he had been a hatter
people would have been born without heads! There is however a
Russian proverb which says that Misfortune is next door to
Stupidity; and it will often be found that men who are constantly
lamenting their luck, are in some way or other reaping the
consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, improvidence, or
want of application. Dr. Johnson, who came up to London with a
single guinea in his pocket, and who once accurately described
himself in his signature to a letter addressed to a noble lord, as
Impransus, or Dinnerless, has honestly said, "All the complaints
which are made of the world are unjust; I never knew a man of merit
neglected; it was generally by his own fault that he failed of
success."

Washington Irying, the American author, held like views. "As for
the talk," said he, "about modest merit being neglected, it is too
often a cant, by which indolent and irresolute men seek to lay
their want of success at the door of the public. Modest merit is,
however, too apt to be inactive, or negligent, or uninstructed
merit. Well matured and well disciplined talent is always sure of
a market, provided it exerts itself; but it must not cower at home
and expect to be sought for. There is a good deal of cant too
about the success of forward and impudent men, while men of
retiring worth are passed over with neglect. But it usually
happens that those forward men have that valuable quality of
promptness and activity without which worth is a mere inoperative
property. A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping
lion."

Attention, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, and
despatch, are the principal qualities required for the efficient
conduct of business of any sort. These, at first sight, may appear
to be small matters; and yet they are of essential importance to
human happiness, well-being, and usefulness. They are little
things, it is true; but human life is made up of comparative
trifles. It is the repetition of little acts which constitute not
only the sum of human character, but which determine the character
of nations. And where men or nations have broken down, it will
almost invariably be found that neglect of little things was the
rock on which they split. Every human being has duties to be
performed, and, therefore, has need of cultivating the capacity for
doing them; whether the sphere of action be the management of a
household, the conduct of a trade or profession, or the government
of a nation.

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