CHAPTER XIX. Be Attentive to Details

BE ATTENTIVE TO DETAILS

To be successful a boy needs, as Arthur Helps said, “an almost ignominious love of detail.” To dream is not sufficient, he must learn to do, and in doing pay special attention to every part. A judge in Cincinnati wanted a rough fence built. When the carpenter came he said to him, “I want this fence mended. There are some unplaned boards, use them. It is out of sight from the house, so you need not take time to make a neat job. I can only pay you a dollar and a half.” On looking at it later the judge found the boards planed and the work finished with excellent neatness. The judge, thinking the young man had done it that he might claim more pay, said somewhat angrily, “I told you this fence was to be covered with vines. I do not care how it looks.” “I do,” said the carpenter. “How much do you charge?” asked the judge. “A dollar and a half,” said the man. “Why did you spend all that labor on it, if not for the money?” “For the job, sir.” “Nobody would have seen the poor work on it.” “But I should have known it was there, sir. No, I’ll only take the dollar and a half,” and he went his way. Ten years later this carpenter was the successful competitor for a great contract the judge had to give, successful among a crowd of others seeking it. “I knew,” said the judge, telling the story afterwards, “we should have only good, genuine work from him; I gave him the contract, and it made a rich man of him.”

WHAT YOU DO, DO WELL.

Whatever is worth engaging one’s interest and energies is worth doing well. Longworth remarked, “I have always had two things before me. Do what you undertake thoroughly. Be faithful in all accepted trusts.” William Grey, the celebrated Boston merchant, once censured a mechanic for some slovenly work, whereupon the latter, who had known Mr. Grey as a drummer in a regiment, slurred him for it. “And so I was,” replied Mr. Grey, “so I was. But, didn’t I drum well?” During a debate in Congress some years ago, a member of aristocratic birth replying to an opponent said, “When we were boys, he used to black my boots.” “And didn’t I black them well?” asked the other. “Yes, I must say in justice to the gentleman that he was called the best bootblack in town.” “Thank you, and let me add that is why I am here. I always tried to do as well as I could. If the member from ——, who taunts me with my lowly origin, had begun life as a bootblack, I fear that he would have been a bootblack still.”

It is said that the late Josiah Quincy was at one time conversing with Daniel Webster upon the importance of doing even the smallest things thoroughly and well, when the great man related an incident concerning a petty insurance case which was brought to him while a young lawyer. The fee promised was only twenty dollars, yet to do his client full justice, Webster found he must journey to Boston and consult the law library. This involved an expense of about the same amount as his fee; but after hesitating a little, he decided to go to Boston and consult the authorities, let the cost be what it might. He gained the case. Years after this, Webster was passing through the city of New York. An important insurance case was to be tried that day, and one of the counsel had been suddenly prostrated by illness. Money was no object, and Webster was asked to name his terms and conduct the case. “It is preposterous,” he said, “to expect me to prepare a legal argument at a few hours’ notice.” But when they insisted that he should look at the papers he consented. It was his old, twenty-dollar case over again, and having a remarkable memory, he had all the authorities in his mind, and he took the case and won it. The court knew he had had no time for preparation, and was astonished at the skill with which he handled the case. “So, you see,” said Webster, as he concluded, “I was handsomely paid, both in fame and money, for that journey to Boston.”

To do well anything that is to be done is a test of power, a proof of efficiency, a criterion of character and a sure way to promotion. Just as the usefulness and value of a stamp depends on its ability to stick, so concentration of interest and effort is the boy’s only secret of success. A burning glass becomes powerful only when focalized on one object, and a boy becomes master of the situation only when he bends mind and body to each detail, never yielding to doubt or discouragement.

LITTLES PRODUCE MUCH.

Great achievements, massive structures, successful inventions are composed of little things. The steam engine is a wonderful machine, but it consists of more than six thousand pieces of metal. The huge “chalk cliffs of Albion” were built by insects so small as to be only seen with the help of the microscope. The book we admire is made up of individual letters. The river is formed of many rivulets, and life consists not in great but numerous little things. A great man once wore a coat of arms which told the secret of his success. It was a mountain at whose base was a workman with coat off and a pickaxe in his hand, with which he was picking at the mountain. His motto was: “Little by little.” The importance of little things is the only criterion of admission to larger ones. Webster’s famous reply to Hayne was made up largely of little reserves which he had picked up here and there in his reading, from studying men, and from observation. “Great, without small, makes a bad wall,” says a Greek proverb. Ammi the Arabian said to his son, “Bring me the fruit of that tree.” Then he said, “Break it open: what do you see?” “Some seeds,” the boy replied. “Break one open; what do you see?” “Nothing,” he answered. “Where you see nothing,” said his father, “there dwells a mighty tree.” It’s the little things that make up character and prepare one’s destiny.

NEGLECT OF LITTLE THINGS.

“Neglect of little things,” said Samuel Smiles, “has ruined many fortunes and marred the best of enterprises.” What may be of “little consequence” may prove to be disastrous. The ship which bore homeward the merchant’s treasure was lost because it was allowed to leave the port from which it sailed with a very little hole in the bottom. “For want of a nail, the shoe of the aide-de-camp’s horse was lost; for want of the shoe, the horse was lost; for want of the horse, the aide-de-camp was lost; for the enemy took and killed him; and for the want of the aide-de-camp’s intelligence, the army of his general was lost; all because a little nail had not been properly fixed in the horse’s shoe!”

When Conova was about to commence his famous statue of the great Napoleon he detected a tiny red line running through the upper portion of the splendid block that at great cost had been brought from Paros. What did he do? Work on it? No, he refused to lay a chisel upon it. In the early struggles of the elder Herschel, while working out the problem of gigantic telescopic specula, he made scores upon scores before he got one to satisfy him. On that one he found a scratch like a spider thread which caused him to reject it, although he had spent weeks of toil upon it.

LITTLE THINGS.

Moments are little things, yet upon them much of the future depends. Important affairs, well laid plans, fortunes and comforts are frequently sacrificed by negligence of the moments. Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son, said, “Every moment you now lose, is so much character and advantage lost, as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully, is so much time wisely laid out, at prodigious interest.” Henry Martyn won the honorable distinction of “the man who never wasted an hour;” while the famous remark of Horace Mann, was, “Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for they are gone forever.”

A condemned man was being led to execution. He had taken the life of another under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve, a favorable answer had been expected the night before, and though it had not come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would arrive in season. Thus the morning passed without the appearance of the messenger. The last moment was up. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in the wind. Just at that moment a horseman came into sight, galloping down hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand, which he waved frantically to the crowd. He was the express rider with the reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died an ignominious death because a watch had been five minutes too slow, making its bearer behind time.

LITTLE WORDS.

The alphabet is composed of letters. Letters constitute words, and words framed into sentences constitute books. Because a word is small it does not follow it is not important. Several of the smallest in the English language are the most important. Should a lawyer in making a deed omit some little words he might involve his client in litigation and perhaps subject him to the loss of his property. Two smaller, yet greater, words are not used than “yes” and “no.” They are decisive and conclusive, and as such every boy should learn to use them correctly. They are the words of courage, moral and physical; they are chivalric, knightly words. On occasions of supreme moment, when destiny awaits decision, they expand to sublime proportions. “Yes” to the right, “no” to the wrong.

Of all words hard to say, doubtless “no” is the hardest. Of William McKinley, Henry B. F. Macfarland wrote, “He could say no, as positively as he could say it pleasantly.” Some one wrote of a boy who had stamina enough to say “no” when necessary:

“Somebody asked me to take a drink. What did I tell him? What do you think? I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody asked me one day to play A game of cards; and what did I say? I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody laughs that I will not swear And lie and steal, but I do not care. I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody asked me to take a sail On the Sabbath day; ’twas of no avail. I told him, ‘No!’

‘If sinners entice thee, consent thou not,’ My Bible said; and so on the spot I told him, ‘No!’”

LITTLE PENNIES.

A penny may not count for much, but one hundred make a dollar, and a dollar saved is a dollar made. Too many young men of the day imagine they cannot be manly without spending freely what they make. Careful saving and careful spending promote success, for “wilful waste makes woful want.” John Jacob Astor said that the saving of the first thousand dollars cost him the hardest struggle. “It is not,” wrote Philip Armour, “what a man earns but what he saves that makes him rich. I deem it of the highest importance to impress upon every young man the duty of beginning to save from the moment he commences to earn, be it ever so little. A habit so formed in early life will prove of incalculable benefit to him in after years, not only in the amount acquired, but through the exercise of economy in small affairs he will grow in knowledge and fitness for larger duties that may devolve upon him.” “My advice,” said Enoch Pratt, the Baltimore millionaire and founder of the Institute that bears his name, “to a young man just starting in life, is to take good care of your health, shun all bad habits, and save at least $1 out of every $5 you earn and immediately get that $1 out at interest. Few people have any idea of the rapidity with which money at interest grows, and there is no better, safer way to get it out at interest than to buy some small piece of real estate that is improved and pays rent sufficient to yield a surplus that will pay the taxes; the interest on the mortgage you will have to give and something on the principal each year.”

“Know when to spend and when to spare, And when to buy, and thou shalt ne’er be bare.”

LITTLE ACTS.

When the air balloon was first invented, someone asked Franklin what was the use of it. He replied by asking another question: “What is the use of a new-born infant?” “It may become a man,” was the significant reply. So little acts may lead to great results, opening the door of opportunities to greater achievements. Baron James de Rothschild once posed as a beggar for Ary Scheffer. While the great financier, attired in the rags of a beggar, was in his place on the estrade, a correspondent of a French paper entered the studio. The Baron was so perfectly disguised that he was not recognized, and, believing that a veritable beggar was before him, the newspaper man slipped a louis into his hand. The pictured model took the coin and put it into his pocket. Ten years later the correspondent received at his residence an order on the office in the Rue Lafitte for ten thousand francs, enclosed in the following letter:

Sir:

One day you gave a louis to Baron Rothschild in the studio of Ary Scheffer. He has employed it, and to-day sends you the little capital with which you entrusted him, together with its interest. A good action always brings good fortune.

BARON JAMES DE ROTHSCHILD.

My boy, the motto of this rich man is certainly true. One cannot show the smallest kindness, render the smallest assistance, attend to the smallest detail without profit to himself and to others. “I discovered the principle by the merest accident,” said Edison to a friend who asked him how he discovered the phonograph. “I was singing to the mouthpiece of a telephone, when the vibrations of the voice sent the fine steel point into my finger. That set me to thinking. If I could record the actions of the point and send the point over the same surface afterward, I saw no reason why the thing would not talk. I tried the experiment first on a strip of telegraph paper, and found that the point made an alphabet. I shouted the word ‘Halloa!’ and ‘Halloa!’ came in return. I determined to make a machine that would work accurately. That’s the whole story. The phonograph is the result of the pricking of a finger.”

While this may seem very simple, my boy, do not overlook the fact that Mr. Edison discovered it by paying attention to little things. “Is it not the little things,” asks William Matthews, “that, in the aggregate, make up whatever is great? Is it not the countless grains of sand that make the beach, the trees that form the forest, the successive strata of rock that compose the mountains, the myriads of almost imperceptible stars that whiten the heavens with the Milky Way? And of what is human happiness made up, but of little things?” Of General Thomas it was said: “He was careful in all the details of a battle.” So in home duties, school work, business interests, yea, in everything you have to do, do well. Resolve—

“If any little words of mine May make a life the brighter, If any little song of mine May make a heart the lighter— God help me speak the little word, And take my bit of singing, And drop it in some lonely vale, To set the echoes ringing!

“If any little love of mine May make a life the sweeter, If any little care of mine May make a friend’s the fleeter, If any little lift may ease The burden of another, God give me love, and care, and strength, To help my toiling brother.”