Self Help

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The examples we have already given of great workers in various
branches of industry, art, and science, render it unnecessary
further to enforce the importance of persevering application in any
department of life. It is the result of every-day experience that
steady attention to matters of detail lies at the root of human
progress; and that diligence, above all, is the mother of good
luck. Accuracy is also of much importance, and an invariable mark
of good training in a man. Accuracy in observation, accuracy in
speech, accuracy in the transaction of affairs. What is done in
business must be well done; for it is better to accomplish
perfectly a small amount of work, than to half-do ten times as
much. A wise man used to say, "Stay a little, that we may make an
end the sooner."

Too little attention, however, is paid to this highly important
quality of accuracy. As a man eminent in practical science lately
observed to us, "It is astonishing how few people I have met with
in the course of my experience, who can DEFINE A FACT accurately."
Yet in business affairs, it is the manner in which even small
matters are transacted, that often decides men for or against you.
With virtue, capacity, and good conduct in other respects, the
person who is habitually inaccurate cannot be trusted; his work has
to be gone over again; and he thus causes an infinity of annoyance,
vexation, and trouble.

It was one of the characteristic qualities of Charles James Fox,
that he was thoroughly pains-taking in all that he did. When
appointed Secretary of State, being piqued at some observation as
to his bad writing, he actually took a writing-master, and wrote
copies like a schoolboy until he had sufficiently improved himself.
Though a corpulent man, he was wonderfully active at picking up cut
tennis balls, and when asked how he contrived to do so, he
playfully replied, "Because I am a very pains-taking man." The
same accuracy in trifling matters was displayed by him in things of
greater importance; and he acquired his reputation, like the
painter, by "neglecting nothing."

Method is essential, and enables a larger amount of work to be got
through with satisfaction. "Method," said the Reverend Richard
Cecil, "is like packing things in a box; a good packer will get in
half as much again as a bad one." Cecil's despatch of business was
extraordinary, his maxim being, "The shortest way to do many things
is to do only one thing at once;" and he never left a thing undone
with a view of recurring to it at a period of more leisure. When
business pressed, he rather chose to encroach on his hours of meals
and rest than omit any part of his work. De Witt's maxim was like
Cecil's: "One thing at a time." "If," said he, "I have any
necessary despatches to make, I think of nothing else till they are
finished; if any domestic affairs require my attention, I give
myself wholly up to them till they are set in order."

A French minister, who was alike remarkable for his despatch of
business and his constant attendance at places of amusement, being
asked how he contrived to combine both objects, replied, "Simply by
never postponing till to-morrow what should be done to-day." Lord
Brougham has said that a certain English statesman reversed the
process, and that his maxim was, never to transact to-day what
could be postponed till to-morrow. Unhappily, such is the practice
of many besides that minister, already almost forgotten; the
practice is that of the indolent and the unsuccessful. Such men,
too, are apt to rely upon agents, who are not always to be relied
upon. Important affairs must be attended to in person. "If you
want your business done," says the proverb, "go and do it; if you
don't want it done, send some one else."

An indolent country gentleman had a freehold estate producing about
five hundred a-year. Becoming involved in debt, he sold half the
estate, and let the remainder to an industrious farmer for twenty
years. About the end of the term the farmer called to pay his
rent, and asked the owner whether he would sell the farm. "Will
YOU buy it?" asked the owner, surprised. "Yes, if we can agree
about the price." "That is exceedingly strange," observed the
gentleman; "pray, tell me how it happens that, while I could not
live upon twice as much land for which I paid no rent, you are
regularly paying me two hundred a-year for your farm, and are able,
in a few years, to purchase it." "The reason is plain," was the
reply; "you sat still and said GO, I got up and said COME; you laid
in bed and enjoyed your estate, I rose in the morning and minded my
business."

Sir Walter Scott, writing to a youth who had obtained a situation
and asked for his advice, gave him in reply this sound counsel:
"Beware of stumbling over a propensity which easily besets you from
not having your time fully employed--I mean what the women call
DAWDLING. Your motto must be, Hoc age. Do instantly whatever is
to be done, and take the hours of recreation after business, never
before it. When a regiment is under march, the rear is often
thrown into confusion because the front do not move steadily and
without interruption. It is the same with business. If that which
is first in hand is not instantly, steadily, and regularly
despatched, other things accumulate behind, till affairs begin to
press all at once, and no human brain can stand the confusion."

Promptitude in action may be stimulated by a due consideration of
the value of time. An Italian philosopher was accustomed to call
time his estate: an estate which produces nothing of value without
cultivation, but, duly improved, never fails to recompense the
labours of the diligent worker. Allowed to lie waste, the product
will be only noxious weeds and vicious growths of all kinds. One
of the minor uses of steady employment is, that it keeps one out of
mischief, for truly an idle brain is the devil's workshop, and a
lazy man the devil's bolster. To be occupied is to be possessed as
by a tenant, whereas to be idle is to be empty; and when the doors
of the imagination are opened, temptation finds a ready access, and
evil thoughts come trooping in. It is observed at sea, that men
are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least
employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do,
would issue the order to "scour the anchor!"

Men of business are accustomed to quote the maxim that Time is
money; but it is more; the proper improvement of it is self-
culture, self-improvement, and growth of character. An hour wasted
daily on trifles or in indolence, would, if devoted to self-
improvement, make an ignorant man wise in a few years, and employed
in good works, would make his life fruitful, and death a harvest of
worthy deeds. Fifteen minutes a day devoted to self-improvement,
will be felt at the end of the year. Good thoughts and carefully
gathered experience take up no room, and may be carried about as
our companions everywhere, without cost or incumbrance. An
economical use of time is the true mode of securing leisure: it
enables us to get through business and carry it forward, instead of
being driven by it. On the other hand, the miscalculation of time
involves us in perpetual hurry, confusion, and difficulties; and
life becomes a mere shuffle of expedients, usually followed by
disaster. Nelson once said, "I owe all my success in life to
having been always a quarter of an hour before my time."

Some take no thought of the value of money until they have come to
an end of it, and many do the same with their time. The hours are
allowed to flow by unemployed, and then, when life is fast waning,
they bethink themselves of the duty of making a wiser use of it.
But the habit of listlessness and idleness may already have become
confirmed, and they are unable to break the bonds with which they
have permitted themselves to become bound. Lost wealth may be
replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by
temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone for ever.

A proper consideration of the value of time, will also inspire
habits of punctuality. "Punctuality," said Louis XIV., "is the
politeness of kings." It is also the duty of gentlemen, and the
necessity of men of business. Nothing begets confidence in a man
sooner than the practice of this virtue, and nothing shakes
confidence sooner than the want of it. He who holds to his
appointment and does not keep you waiting for him, shows that he
has regard for your time as well as for his own. Thus punctuality
is one of the modes by which we testify our personal respect for
those whom we are called upon to meet in the business of life. It
is also conscientiousness in a measure; for an appointment is a
contract, express or implied, and he who does not keep it breaks
faith, as well as dishonestly uses other people's time, and thus
inevitably loses character. We naturally come to the conclusion
that the person who is careless about time will be careless about
business, and that he is not the one to be trusted with the
transaction of matters of importance. When Washington's secretary
excused himself for the lateness of his attendance and laid the
blame upon his watch, his master quietly said, "Then you must get
another watch, or I another secretary."

The person who is negligent of time and its employment is usually
found to be a general disturber of others' peace and serenity. It
was wittily said by Lord Chesterfield of the old Duke of Newcastle-
-"His Grace loses an hour in the morning, and is looking for it all
the rest of the day." Everybody with whom the unpunctual man has
to do is thrown from time to time into a state of fever: he is
systematically late; regular only in his irregularity. He conducts
his dawdling as if upon system; arrives at his appointment after
time; gets to the railway station after the train has started;
posts his letter when the box has closed. Thus business is thrown
into confusion, and everybody concerned is put out of temper. It
will generally be found that the men who are thus habitually behind
time are as habitually behind success; and the world generally
casts them aside to swell the ranks of the grumblers and the
railers against fortune.

In addition to the ordinary working qualities the business man of
the highest class requires quick perception and firmness in the
execution of his plans. Tact is also important; and though this is
partly the gift of nature, it is yet capable of being cultivated
and developed by observation and experience. Men of this quality
are quick to see the right mode of action, and if they have
decision of purpose, are prompt to carry out their undertakings to
a successful issue. These qualities are especially valuable, and
indeed indispensable, in those who direct the action of other men
on a large scale, as for instance, in the case of the commander of
an army in the field. It is not merely necessary that the general
should be great as a warrior but also as a man of business. He
must possess great tact, much knowledge of character, and ability
to organize the movements of a large mass of men, whom he has to
feed, clothe, and furnish with whatever may be necessary in order
that they may keep the field and win battles. In these respects
Napoleon and Wellington were both first-rate men of business.

Though Napoleon had an immense love for details, he had also a
vivid power of imagination, which enabled him to look along
extended lines of action, and deal with those details on a large
scale, with judgment and rapidity. He possessed such knowledge of
character as enabled him to select, almost unerringly, the best
agents for the execution of his designs. But he trusted as little
as possible to agents in matters of great moment, on which
important results depended. This feature in his character is
illustrated in a remarkable degree by the 'Napoleon
Correspondence,' now in course of publication, and particularly by
the contents of the 15th volume, {25} which include the letters,
orders, and despatches, written by the Emperor at Finkenstein, a
little chateau on the frontier of Poland in the year 1807, shortly
after the victory of Eylau.

The French army was then lying encamped along the river Passarge
with the Russians before them, the Austrians on their right flank,
and the conquered Prussians in their rear. A long line of
communications had to be maintained with France, through a hostile
country; but so carefully, and with such foresight was this
provided for, that it is said Napoleon never missed a post. The
movements of armies, the bringing up of reinforcements from remote
points in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, the opening of canals
and the levelling of roads to enable the produce of Poland and
Prussia to be readily transported to his encampments, had his
unceasing attention, down to the minutest details. We find him
directing where horses were to be obtained, making arrangements for
an adequate supply of saddles, ordering shoes for the soldiers, and
specifying the number of rations of bread, biscuit, and spirits,
that were to be brought to camp, or stored in magazines for the use
of the troops. At the same time we find him writing to Paris
giving directions for the reorganization of the French College,
devising a scheme of public education, dictating bulletins and
articles for the 'Moniteur,' revising the details of the budgets,
giving instructions to architects as to alterations to be made at
the Tuileries and the Church of the Madelaine, throwing an
occasional sarcasm at Madame de Stael and the Parisian journals,
interfering to put down a squabble at the Grand Opera, carrying on
a correspondence with the Sultan of Turkey and the Schah of Persia,
so that while his body was at Finkenstein, his mind seemed to be
working at a hundred different places in Paris, in Europe, and
throughout the world.

We find him in one letter asking Ney if he has duly received the
muskets which have been sent him; in another he gives directions to
Prince Jerome as to the shirts, greatcoats, clothes, shoes, shakos,
and arms, to be served out to the Wurtemburg regiments; again he
presses Cambaceres to forward to the army a double stock of corn--
"The IFS and the BUTS," said he, "are at present out of season, and
above all it must be done with speed." Then he informs Daru that
the army want shirts, and that they don't come to hand. To Massena
he writes, "Let me know if your biscuit and bread arrangements are
yet completed." To the Grand due de Berg, he gives directions as
to the accoutrements of the cuirassiers--"They complain that the
men want sabres; send an officer to obtain them at Posen. It is
also said they want helmets; order that they be made at Ebling. . .
. It is not by sleeping that one can accomplish anything." Thus no
point of detail was neglected, and the energies of all were
stimulated into action with extraordinary power. Though many of
the Emperor's days were occupied by inspections of his troops,--in
the course of which he sometimes rode from thirty to forty leagues
a day,--and by reviews, receptions, and affairs of state, leaving
but little time for business matters, he neglected nothing on that
account; but devoted the greater part of his nights, when
necessary, to examining budgets, dictating dispatches, and
attending to the thousand matters of detail in the organization and
working of the Imperial Government; the machinery of which was for
the most part concentrated in his own head.

Like Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington was a first-rate man of
business; and it is not perhaps saying too much to aver that it was
in no small degree because of his possession of a business faculty
amounting to genius, that the Duke never lost a battle.

While a subaltern, he became dissatisfied with the slowness of his
promotion, and having passed from the infantry to the cavalry
twice, and back again, without advancement, he applied to Lord
Camden, then Viceroy of Ireland, for employment in the Revenue or
Treasury Board. Had he succeeded, no doubt he would have made a
first-rate head of a department, as he would have made a first-rate
merchant or manufacturer. But his application failed, and he
remained with the army to become the greatest of British generals.

The Duke began his active military career under the Duke of York
and General Walmoden, in Flanders and Holland, where he learnt,
amidst misfortunes and defeats, how bad business arrangements and
bad generalship serve to ruin the morale of an army. Ten years
after entering the army we find him a colonel in India, reported by
his superiors as an officer of indefatigable energy and
application. He entered into the minutest details of the service,
and sought to raise the discipline of his men to the highest
standard. "The regiment of Colonel Wellesley," wrote General
Harris in 1799, "is a model regiment; on the score of soldierly
bearing, discipline, instruction, and orderly behaviour it is above
all praise." Thus qualifying himself for posts of greater
confidence, he was shortly after nominated governor of the capital
of Mysore. In the war with the Mahrattas he was first called upon
to try his hand at generalship; and at thirty-four he won the
memorable battle of Assaye, with an army composed of 1500 British
and 5000 sepoys, over 20,000 Mahratta infantry and 30,000 cavalry.
But so brilliant a victory did not in the least disturb his
equanimity, or affect the perfect honesty of his character.

Shortly after this event the opportunity occurred for exhibiting
his admirable practical qualities as an administrator. Placed in
command of an important district immediately after the capture of
Seringapatam, his first object was to establish rigid order and
discipline among his own men. Flushed with victory, the troops
were found riotous and disorderly. "Send me the provost marshal,"
said he, "and put him under my orders: till some of the marauders
are hung, it is impossible to expect order or safety." This rigid
severity of Wellington in the field, though it was the dread,
proved the salvation of his troops in many campaigns. His next
step was to re-establish the markets and re-open the sources of
supply. General Harris wrote to the Governor-general, strongly
commending Colonel Wellesley for the perfect discipline he had
established, and for his "judicious and masterly arrangements in
respect to supplies, which opened an abundant free market, and
inspired confidence into dealers of every description." The same
close attention to, and mastery of details, characterized him
throughout his Indian career; and it is remarkable that one of his
ablest despatches to Lord Clive, full of practical information as
to the conduct of the campaign, was written whilst the column he
commanded was crossing the Toombuddra, in the face of the vastly
superior army of Dhoondiah, posted on the opposite bank, and while
a thousand matters of the deepest interest were pressing upon the
commander's mind. But it was one of his most remarkable
characteristics, thus to be able to withdraw himself temporarily
from the business immediately in hand, and to bend his full powers
upon the consideration of matters totally distinct; even the most
difficult circumstances on such occasions failing to embarrass or
intimidate him.

Returned to England with a reputation for generalship, Sir Arthur
Wellesley met with immediate employment. In 1808 a corps of 10,000
men destined to liberate Portugal was placed under his charge. He
landed, fought, and won two battles, and signed the Convention of
Cintra. After the death of Sir John Moore he was entrusted with
the command of a new expedition to Portugal. But Wellington was
fearfully overmatched throughout his Peninsular campaigns. From
1809 to 1813 he never had more than 30,000 British troops under his
command, at a time when there stood opposed to him in the Peninsula
some 350,000 French, mostly veterans, led by some of Napoleon's
ablest generals. How was he to contend against such immense forces
with any fair prospect of success? His clear discernment and
strong common sense soon taught him that he must adopt a different
policy from that of the Spanish generals, who were invariably
beaten and dispersed whenever they ventured to offer battle in the
open plains. He perceived he had yet to create the army that was
to contend against the French with any reasonable chance of
success. Accordingly, after the battle of Talavera in 1809, when
he found himself encompassed on all sides by superior forces of
French, he retired into Portugal, there to carry out the settled
policy on which he had by this time determined. It was, to
organise a Portuguese army under British officers, and teach them
to act in combination with his own troops, in the mean time
avoiding the peril of a defeat by declining all engagements. He
would thus, he conceived, destroy the morale of the French, who
could not exist without victories; and when his army was ripe for
action, and the enemy demoralized, he would then fall upon them
with all his might.

The extraordinary qualities displayed by Lord Wellington throughout
these immortal campaigns, can only be appreciated after a perusal
of his despatches, which contain the unvarnished tale of the
manifold ways and means by which he laid the foundations of his
success. Never was man more tried by difficulty and opposition,
arising not less from the imbecility, falsehoods and intrigues of
the British Government of the day, than from the selfishness,
cowardice, and vanity of the people he went to save. It may,
indeed, be said of him, that he sustained the war in Spain by his
individual firmness and self-reliance, which never failed him even
in the midst of his great discouragements. He had not only to
fight Napoleon's veterans, but also to hold in check the Spanish
juntas and the Portuguese regency. He had the utmost difficulty in
obtaining provisions and clothing for his troops; and it will
scarcely be credited that, while engaged with the enemy in the
battle of Talavera, the Spaniards, who ran away, fell upon the
baggage of the British army, and the ruffians actually plundered
it! These and other vexations the Duke bore with a sublime
patience and self-control, and held on his course, in the face of
ingratitude, treachery, and opposition, with indomitable firmness.
He neglected nothing, and attended to every important detail of
business himself. When he found that food for his troops was not
to be obtained from England, and that he must rely upon his own
resources for feeding them, he forthwith commenced business as a
corn merchant on a large scale, in copartnery with the British
Minister at Lisbon. Commissariat bills were created, with which
grain was bought in the ports of the Mediterranean and in South
America. When he had thus filled his magazines, the overplus was
sold to the Portuguese, who were greatly in want of provisions. He
left nothing whatever to chance, but provided for every
contingency. He gave his attention to the minutest details of the
service; and was accustomed to concentrate his whole energies, from
time to time, on such apparently ignominious matters as soldiers'
shoes, camp-kettles, biscuits and horse fodder. His magnificent
business qualities were everywhere felt, and there can be no doubt
that, by the care with which he provided for every contingency, and
the personal attention which he gave to every detail, he laid the
foundations of his great success. {26} By such means he
transformed an army of raw levies into the best soldiers in Europe,
with whom he declared it to be possible to go anywhere and do
anything.

We have already referred to his remarkable power of abstracting
himself from the work, no matter how engrossing, immediately in
hand, and concentrating his energies upon the details of some
entirely different business. Thus Napier relates that it was while
he was preparing to fight the battle of Salamanca that he had to
expose to the Ministers at home the futility of relying upon a
loan; it was on the heights of San Christoval, on the field of
battle itself, that he demonstrated the absurdity of attempting to
establish a Portuguese bank; it was in the trenches of Burgos that
he dissected Funchal's scheme of finance, and exposed the folly of
attempting the sale of church property; and on each occasion, he
showed himself as well acquainted with these subjects as with the
minutest detail in the mechanism of armies.

Another feature in his character, showing the upright man of
business, was his thorough honesty. Whilst Soult ransacked and
carried away with him from Spain numerous pictures of great value,
Wellington did not appropriate to himself a single farthing's worth
of property. Everywhere he paid his way, even when in the enemy's
country. When he had crossed the French frontier, followed by
40,000 Spaniards, who sought to "make fortunes" by pillage and
plunder, he first rebuked their officers, and then, finding his
efforts to restrain them unavailing, he sent them back into their
own country. It is a remarkable fact, that, even in France the
peasantry fled from their own countrymen, and carried their
valuables within the protection of the British lines! At the very
same time, Wellington was writing home to the British Ministry, "We
are overwhelmed with debts, and I can scarcely stir out of my house
on account of public creditors waiting to demand payment of what is
due to them." Jules Maurel, in his estimate of the Duke's
character, says, "Nothing can be grander or more nobly original
than this admission. This old soldier, after thirty years'
service, this iron man and victorious general, established in an
enemy's country at the head of an immense army, is afraid of his
creditors! This is a kind of fear that has seldom troubled the
mind of conquerors and invaders; and I doubt if the annals of war
could present anything comparable to this sublime simplicity." But
the Duke himself, had the matter been put to him, would most
probably have disclaimed any intention of acting even grandly or
nobly in the matter; merely regarding the punctual payment of his
debts as the best and most honourable mode of conducting his
business.

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