登陆注册
4810500000018

第18章

Every blast. _"Diligence passe sens,"_ Henry VIII. was wont to say, or, great is drill. John Kemble said, that the worst provincial company of actors would go through a play better than the best amateur company. Basil Hall likes to show that the worst regular troops will beat the best volunteers. Practice is nine tenths. Acourse of mobs is good practice for orators. All the great speakers were bad speakers at first. Stumping it through England for seven years, made Cobden a consummate debater. Stumping it through New England for twice seven, trained Wendell Phillips. The way to learn German, is, to read the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you know every word and particle in them, and can pronounce and repeat them by heart. No genius can recite a ballad at first reading, so well as mediocrity can at the fifteenth or twentieth readying. The rule for hospitality and Irish `help,' is, to have the same dinner every day throughout the year. At last, Mrs.

O'Shaughnessy learns to cook it to a nicety, the host learns to carve it, and the guests are well served. A humorous friend of mine thinks, that the reason why Nature is so perfect in her art, and gets up such inconceivably fine sunsets, is, that she has learned how, at last, by dint of doing the same thing so very often. Cannot one converse better on a topic on which he has experience, than on one which is new? Men whose opinion is valued on 'Change, are only such as have a special experience, and off that ground their opinion is not valuable. "More are made good by exercitation, than by nature,"said Democritus. The friction in nature is so enormous that we cannot spare any power. It is not question to express our thought, to elect our way, but to overcome resistances of the medium and material in everything we do. Hence the use of drill, and the worthlessness of amateurs to cope with practitioners. Six hours every day at the piano, only to give facility of touch; six hours a day at painting, only to give command of the odious materials, oil, ochres, and brushes. The masters say, that they know a master in music, only by seeing the pose of the hands on the keys; -- so difficult and vital an act is the command of the instrument. To have learned the use of the tools, by thousands of manipulations; to have learned the arts of reckoning, by endless adding and dividing, is the power of the mechanic and the clerk.

I remarked in England, in confirmation of a frequent experience at home, that, in literary circles, the men of trust and consideration, bookmakers, editors, university deans and professors, bishops, too, were by no means men of the largest literary talent, but usually of a low and ordinary intellectuality, with a sort of mercantile activity and working talent. Indifferent hacks and mediocrities tower, by pushing their forces to a lucrative point, or by working power, over multitudes of superior men, in Old as in New England.

I have not forgotten that there are sublime considerations which limit the value of talent and superficial success. We can easily overpraise the vulgar hero. There are sources on which we have not drawn. I know what I abstain from. I adjourn what I have to say on this topic to the chapters on Culture and Worship. But this force or spirit, being the means relied on by Nature for bringing the work of the day about, -- as far as we attach importance to household life, and the prizes of the world, we must respect that.

And I hold, that an economy may be applied to it; it is as much a subject of exact law and arithmetic as fluids and gases are; it may be husbanded, or wasted; every man is efficient only as he is a container or vessel of this force, and never was any signal act or achievement in history, but by this expenditure. This is not gold, but the gold-maker; not the fame, but the exploit.

If these forces and this husbandry are within reach of our will, and the laws of them can be read, we infer that all success, and all conceivable benefit for man, is also, first or last, within his reach, and has its own sublime economies by which it may be attained. The world is mathematical, and has no casualty, in all its vast and flowing curve. Success has no more eccentricity, than the gingham and muslin we weave in our mills. I know no more affecting lesson to our busy, plotting New England brains, than to go into one of the factories with which we have lined all the watercourses in the States. A man hardly knows how much he is a machine, until he begins to make telegraph, loom, press, and locomotive, in his own image.

But in these, he is forced to leave out his follies and hindrances, so that when we go to the mill, the machine is more moral than we.

Let a man dare go to a loom, and see if he be equal to it. Let machine confront machine, and see how they come out. The world-mill is more complex than the calico-mill, and the architect stooped less.

In the gingham-mill, a broken thread or a shred spoils the web through a piece of a hundred yards, and is traced back to the girl that wove it, and lessens her wages. The stockholder, on being shown this, rubs his hands with delight. Are you so cunning, Mr.

Profitloss, and do you expect to swindle your master and employer, in the web you weave? A day is a more magnificent cloth than any muslin, the mechanism that makes it is infinitely cunninger, and you shall not conceal the sleezy, fraudulent, rotten hours you have slipped into the piece, nor fear that any honest thread, or straighter steel, or more inflexible shaft, will not testify in the web.

同类推荐
  • 淮南鸿烈解

    淮南鸿烈解

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 丛桂草堂医案

    丛桂草堂医案

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 郡阁雅言

    郡阁雅言

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

    A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 律二十二明了论

    律二十二明了论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 殿上妻:宫女有毒

    殿上妻:宫女有毒

    她是皇后娘娘的贴身宫女,他是端王庶出之子,他为得到天下一步步谋划,她为留在他身边一退再退,当他为了江山,为了权势害死了她身边最亲近的人,当宫变的城墙上他毫不犹豫一箭射向她时,她除了心死,眼前就只剩下一片无尽的黑暗……
  • 课本上读不到的化学故事

    课本上读不到的化学故事

    五颜六色的石头、臭臭的煤气、会冒泡的可乐……我们身边这些好玩的生活现象其实蕴含着奥妙无穷的化学知识。本书将把你带进神奇的化学世界,让你知道为什么“银子”比金子还贵,为什么小狗受伤了舔舔就能好,为什么刚盖好的房顶要浇水,为什么萤火虫能“发光”,为什么煎药要用瓦罐……这些妙趣横生的化学故事一定让你大开眼界、叹为观止,让你轻轻松松爱上化学、学会化学。
  • 中华诗词名句鉴赏(中华古文化经典丛书)

    中华诗词名句鉴赏(中华古文化经典丛书)

    本书搜集了大量的中华诗词中的经典名句,并配有解析,如“一日不见,如三秋兮”、“树欲静而风不止”、“英雄一入狱,天地亦悲秋”等。荟萃了流传久远、脍炙人口、有欣赏和实用价值的名言佳句两千多条,编选的典籍从孔子整理的《诗经》到民国时期的著作,历两千多年。一书在手,尽览中国诗文词曲千古绝唱;开卷有益,领略宠中华民族文化千年辉煌。注释准确疏通词义,言简意赅,权威考证。鉴赏精辟,深入浅出,优美精当,陶冶情操。
  • 你是我的星光之海

    你是我的星光之海

    他,是个阳光灿烂爱笑的大男孩。她,是个美丽,让人觉得不食人间烟火的小女生。因为弟弟的原因,他与她相识,相恋。却因为一场突如其来的车祸,上帝永远的从她身边,带走了她年华中最美好的初恋。
  • 公务员之死

    公务员之死

    长篇小说《小公务员》讲述的是70后的官场爱情故事。小说以主人公“我”的成长和情感、生活、工作经历为主线,成功地展现了70年代男女青年的事业观、爱情观和价值观。“我”自幼生活在贫苦的农民家庭,通过刻苦学习考取了中专,后来分配在一个小镇中学当教师,经过努力,又到了市政府做小公务员的爱情工作,在这中间,“我”遇到了四个女孩,与她们之间发生了四种不同的爱情故事。由于小时候的艰难困苦的生活环境,“我”从小就自卑,尤其是中专时,“我”爱上了同班同学小芳,由于自己出身贫寒,小芳家人拒绝他们来往,更让“我”感到伤心的是,小芳竟然转恋同班的“我”···
  • 霸上腹黑小娇妻

    霸上腹黑小娇妻

    安莜喜欢顾泽海的那种温文儒雅做人做事的方式,虽然还略带着一丝稚气,但是他的确是一个可以宽容所有人的王子,安莜同样喜欢顾泽海的哥哥顾泽宇,相比顾泽海,顾泽宇更加的成熟阴险,而自身优秀的条件几乎无可挑剔。安莜从稚气到成熟在到阴险狡诈,她徘徊在着两个人的身边,安莜最开始喜欢的是顾泽海可是最后一刻她才明白,原来一直身为她竞争对手的人才是她真正爱的人,虽然在最后一刻她因为白血病没有和两人中的任何一个人在一起,但是能够参加一次婚礼对于安莜来讲她已经很满足了。
  • 万界帝星

    万界帝星

    一座塔镇压万千星域,一杆枪刺穿古今时空,一面镜分割阴阳生死,一把刀斩灭万族信仰,一滴泪衍化一方世界,一段路埋葬亿万天骄,我不想踩着尸骨上位,我爱和平
  • 风带不走的回忆

    风带不走的回忆

    青春是人生中最美好的季节,我们在最懵懂的岁月相遇。随着时光的流逝,我希望这份最美的记忆,能够永远留在每个人的心中,随着时间而永恒……这本书,献给我的青春,也是我们几个好朋友,好兄弟的回忆。希望在很多年后,看到这本书,能想起曾经的我们……
  • 重武乾坤

    重武乾坤

    天孙重武,因被刺杀而来到人界,与易玲珑暗生情愫,面对天族等级森严的制度,重武第一次有了反抗的心思。面对天族众长老的反对,重武说:“如果成为天尊我们还不能在一起,那我就超越天尊!”“悠悠三界,若无你我安身之所,那我便造出一个来。”
  • 哲学九讲

    哲学九讲

    哲学的根本问题是思维和存在、精神和物质的关系问题,人们在工作过程中通过对各种知识的概括学习和总结从而更好的更深刻的了解和认识自然、认识社会。哲学通常是研究根本问题的,这就需要对表面的问题进行批判的反思,通过这种反思更清楚的认识世界、了解人生。