Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures Part 18

Now and then I hear an old man or an old woman say, "Even if I could I would not live life over." Well, I own I would, provided I could begin the journey with the knowledge I now have of what it means to live.

While mistakes have been many there are some things I would not change. I would be brought up in the country as I was. I would play over the same blue-gra.s.s carpet, along the same turnpike aisle, swing on the branches of the same old trees and listen to the concert chorus of the same song birds.

Indeed I sympathize with the boy who exchanges the music of birds, melody of streams, lowing of herds, driving of teams, diamond dew on bending blade, morning sun and evening shade, with all other sweet a.s.sociations of country life for a lodging room in a city, where church doors and home doors are closed against him in the evening hours of the week, and all evil places wide open for his ruin. It has been well said: "The street fair of evil a.s.sociations in our large cities begins with the night shadows and grows with the darkness." I dare say if I could draw aside the veil that will shut in the night scenes of this city, the revelation would make some G.o.dly fathers tremble for their boys, and pious mothers long to gather their children about them when the sun goes down, as moor birds gather their helpless young when hawks are screaming in the sky.

All hail to the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, with its open doors for young men in the evening hours! All hail to its gymnasium, its swimming pool, basketball and other sports that develop strength and furnish entertainment! Away with the idea that all the pleasures of the world belong to the devil.

A distinguished divine was brought up in New England by a staid old aunt, who never let him go anywhere except to church, Sunday school and prayer meeting. When quite a lad she let him go to New York City to visit a cousin. That cousin took him to see Barnum's circus. It was his first circus, and the wild animals, the bareback riding, trapeze performance, clowns and chariot races bewildered the country boy. Next morning he wrote his aunt, saying: "Dear Aunt, if you'll go to one circus you'll never go to another prayer meeting as long as you live."

But he did go to prayer meeting and became a grand good man. There are many innocent springs of pleasure, where youth can drink and not be harmed.

It may surprise some for me to say, if I could live life over I would be brought up in the same old state of Kentucky. "With all her faults I love her still," _but not her stills_. It has been my privilege to visit every state in the union and I find all the good is not in any one state, nor all the bad. While Kentucky has had her night riders, Missouri has had her boodlers, California her grafters, Illinois her anarchists, Pennsylvania her machine politics, New York her Tammany tiger, and Was.h.i.+ngton City her blizzards on inauguration days. G.o.d doesn't grow all the daisies in one field nor confine thorns to one thicket.

It's been my lot this land to roam, O'er every state twixt ocean's foam, But still my heart clings to its home, Kentucky.

I've traveled the prairies of the west, I've seen each section at its best, There's nothing like my native nest, Kentucky.

No matter through what state I pa.s.s, No matter how the people cla.s.s, To me there's only one Blue Gra.s.s, Kentucky.

When my wanderings here are o'er, And my spirit seeks the golden sh.o.r.e, Then keep my dust for evermore, Kentucky.

Not only would I be brought up in Kentucky and in the country, but I would go to the same Yankee schoolmaster, have the same sweethearts and marry the same girl, provided she would consent to make another journey with the same companion. By the way, we were married in Bourbon County, Kentucky, when she was nineteen and I twenty. About four years ago we celebrated our golden wedding, and the morning after the celebration,

She put on "her old grey bonnet, With the blue ribbon on it."

We didn't "hitch Dobbin to the Shay"

But along the interurban We rode down to Bourbon, Where we started for our golden wedding day.

If I could live life over surely I could ask no better age than the one in which I have lived. We no longer toil over a mountain, but glide through it on ribbons of steel; telegraphy dives the deep and brings us the news of the old world every morning before breakfast; we talk with tongues of lightning through telephones and send messages on ether waves over the sea; we ride horse-cycles that run, never walk and live without eating; we travel in carriages drawn by electric steeds that never tire; the signal service gives us a geography of the weather, so the farmer may know whether or not to prepare to plow, and the Sunday school whether to arrange or to postpone its picnic tomorrow; airs.h.i.+ps mount the heavens, steams.h.i.+ps plough the ocean's bosom, submarine torpedo boats undermine the deep with missiles of death, while photography turns one inside out, and doctors no longer guess at the location of a bullet. All these things have come to pa.s.s within my life-time. What may the young before me expect in the next fifty years?

Recently I read an imaginary letter, supposed to have been written by a Wellsley College girl. It was dated one hundred years in the future.

She wrote:

"Father gave me a new airs.h.i.+p a few weeks ago. I leave my home in Baltimore every morning after breakfast and reach Wellsley in time for cla.s.ses. We have only thirty minutes in school in the morning and fifteen in the afternoon. Our teachers are in telepathic touch with all knowledge and we get it in condensed form. A few days ago, just after lunch at noon I took a spin up into Canada; the machine got a little out of fix, so I jumped on a gyroscope and returned in time for dinner at six.

"Yesterday I sailed over to New York City and took dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria; had two capsules for dinner and they were delicious.

I read how the people used to sit around tables and eat all kinds of things. It must have been funny to see their mouths all going at one time. Then they had stomach trouble--indigestion they called it. Now we have everything necessary for the human system put up in capsules; we get up a thousand feet above the earth where the air is pure, so we ought to live to be two hundred years old.

"Last week my cla.s.smate and I took a flying trip to see the Panama Ca.n.a.l, and while there we decided to take in the Exposition at San Francisco next day. There we saw many antiquated machines called automobiles; they used to run around the streets in rubber stockings, honking horns to warn the poor, then turning turtle they killed or maimed the rich. In one department we saw an animal with long tail, and a mane on its neck. They called it a horse and told us that years ago horses were harnessed and driven about the streets, while the fast ones were raced for money."

That young woman may be all right about her capsule dinners and condensed instruction, but one hundred years from now, when on her way from the west to Wellsley if she will stop in Lexington, Ky., she will see a horse sale in progress; horses selling from five hundred to ten thousand dollars that will trot or pace a mile in less than two minutes, while slow ones will be hitched to dead wagons, used to gather up those who have fallen from airs.h.i.+ps and gyroscopes. It may be that one hundred years in the future airs.h.i.+ps will be seen soaring over the cities, delivering packages in parachutes at the back doors of residences, but the day will never dawn when there will be an airs.h.i.+p, gyroscope, or an automobile that will supplant the fleet-footed, sleek-coated, handsome Kentucky horse.

Now I come to the more practical, for I do not bring you this talk, challenging your criticism or inviting your praise of it as a literary production, but with the purpose of helping some one live as I would wish to live if I had my life to live over.

First, to the boys before me. If I had life to live over one of my first purposes would be to seek my calling in life. Do you know half the failures of life come from misfits of occupation? There are lawyers starving for want of clients, doctors with patients under monuments, and preachers talking to empty pews, who might have been successful in factories or furrows. Cowper was a failure as a lawyer, he was a success as a poet; Goldsmith was a bungling surgeon, he was a power with his pen; Horace Greely was a success in the Tribune office, he was a failure as a farmer and a slow candidate for president.

When U.S. Grant was a very young man his father sent him to sell a horse to a buyer and instructed him to ask one hundred dollars, but if he could not get that amount to take eighty-five. The buyer looked the horse over and said: "Young man, what is your price?" Young Grant replied: "Father told me to ask you one hundred dollars, but if you would not give that to take eighty-five." It is needless to say the calling of U.S. Grant was not horse trading. This same young man afterwards tried the grocery business and bought potatoes far and wide to corner the market, but the price went down, the potatoes rotted in Grant's bins and his grocery effort was on a par with his horse trading. He then tried the ice market but that became watered stock on his hands and again he was a failure. Later on in life 'mid roar of cannon and rattle of musketry the misfit found his element. Here he was so sure of his calling he made his motto, "I'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," and to the general, who could not drive a horse trade, or corner the potato market, or deal in ice, one of the greatest generals the world ever knew surrendered his sword, and from the highest military position Grant was called to be President of the United States.

If it is true that "ever since creation shot its first shuttle through chaos design has marked the course of every golden thread," then every human being is designed to fill a certain place in life. There are young women teaching school, getting to be old maids, who should be the wives of good husbands, and there are some wives who ought to be old maid "schoolmarms."

We have born architects, born orators, born bookkeepers, born musicians, born poets, born preachers, born teachers, born surgeons, born bankers, born blacksmiths, born merchants, born farmers.

Two farmers live side by side; one doesn't seem to work hard, yet everything is neatness from one end of the farm to the other; his neighbor works hard, yet the cattle are in his corn, the fences are broken, gates off the hinges and everything seems out of order. That man was not made to be a farmer. He should rent out, or sell out, and go to the legislature, or find some other place he can fill.

Matthew Arnold said: "Better be a Napoleon of book-blacks, or an Alexander of chimney-sweeps, than an attorney, who, like necessity, knows no law." There are born shoemakers cobbling in Congress, while statesmen are pegging away on a shoe-last because their brains have not been capitalized by education and opportunity. There are born preachers at work in machine shops, and born mechanics rattling around in pulpits like a mustard seed in an empty gourd; born surgeons are carving beef in butcher stalls, while here and there butchers are operating for appendicitis.

G.o.d planted the hardy pine on the hills of New England, and the magnolia down in the sunny South-land. Let some horticulturist compel the magnolia to climb the cold hills of New England, and the northern tree to come down and take its place in the "land of cotton, cinnamon seed and sandy bottom," and everything in both will protest against the mistake.

Lowell said: "Every baby boy is born with a calling." With some this calling is very definite. It was definite with George Stevenson when in childhood he made engines of mud with sticks for smoke-stacks. It was definite with Thomas A. Edison, who, instead of selling newspapers, went to experimenting with acids, and charged a steel stirrup that lifted him into the electric saddle of the world. With others it is very indefinite. Patrick Henry failed at everything he undertook until he began talking, when he soon became the golden mouthed orator of his age. Peter Cooper failed until he took to making glue, then his business "stuck" to everybody and he made a fortune out of which he built Cooper Union for the education of poor boys.

I have a grandson whose calling was indefinite. He was named for his grandfather, to whom fis.h.i.+ng is a fad. During my rest season I go fis.h.i.+ng almost every day. While I make an exception of Sunday I can appreciate the minister who was a great fisherman. On his way to an appointment Sunday morning he came upon a lad fis.h.i.+ng in a wayside stream. Halting he said: "My boy, this is the Sabbath day and the good Book says you should remember to keep it holy." Just then a fish seized the boy's bait and drew the float under, when the good minister excitedly said: "Pull, pull. Ah! that's a good one. I'll try that place myself _some other day_."

Fis.h.i.+ng is my favorite sport. My grandson was a baseball fiend and a football player. He was hurt in a football game and I wrote him, warning him against his recklessness, and to the admonition I added: "Twenty-five boys have been killed already this season playing football; it's a brutal game anyway."

He replied: "Dear Grandfather, I am sorry so many boys have been killed playing football, but I read recently that last summer two hundred and fifty men were drowned while out fis.h.i.+ng; would it not be well for you to keep off Lake Ellerslie? You say football is a brutal game; I submit to you, Grandpa, that the man who takes an innocent worm or a minnow, strings it on a steel hook, and sinking it into the water, jerks the gills out of an innocent fish, is more cruel than the boy who kicks another around for exercise. I need a pair of baseball shoes, number six and a half; send them by express." He got the shoes, and I decided _he_ was called to be a lawyer.

Young man, if you get to be a preacher and cannot put force into your sermon, the world doesn't want to hear you preach, but if you are a good cobbler it will wear your shoes, if a good baker it will eat your bread, or if a good barber it will let you put your razor to its throat. Remember in making your choice,

"Honor and fame from no condition rise, Act well your part; there the honor lies."

If I could live life over, I would not be content with a common school education. In my youth circ.u.mstances lifted a dead wall against my hopes, but if given another chance I would somehow press my way to where higher education scatters its trophies at the feet of youth, for while it is true some of the most successful men of our country graduated from the high school of "hard knocks" and universities of adversity, yet the humblest toil is more easily accomplished and better done where college education guides.

To college education, however, I would add the education which comes from rubbing against the world. Some one has said: "For every ounce of book knowledge one needs a half dozen ounces of common sense with which to apply it." Douglas Jerrold said: "I have a friend who can speak fluently a dozen different languages but has not a practical idea to express in any one of them."

An old woman suffering from rheumatism was asked by a friend: "Did you ever try electricity?"

She answered: "Yes, I was struck by lightning once but it didn't do me any good."

In this many sided age one needs to educate muscle, nerves, heart and conscience as well as brain. That man who is all brain and no heart, goes through the world with his intellect s.h.i.+ning above his bosom like an electric light over a graveyard.

Young people, do you know you live in a testing world, a world in which all buds and blossoms are tested? The bud that stands the test of wind and frost goes on to flower and fruitage; the bud that can't stand the test goes with the dust to be trampled under foot. Every cannon made by the government is tested; the cannon that can stand the test goes into battles.h.i.+p or land fort, the cannon that can't stand the test goes into the junk pile.

Yonder in Virginia a few years ago, there was a young man who had everything an indulgent father could give him, but in school his character could not stand the test, and he exchanged his books for wine and cards. He married a beautiful young woman, shot her to death in his automobile and died himself in the electric chair, leaving his old father in a desolate home with harrowing memories tearing his heart; while over the life of an innocent babe he hung a cloud as dark as was ever woven out of the world's misfortune, and sent another life to wander in painted shame outside life's eden of purity, the barb of conscious guilt to be driven deeper and deeper into her soul by the scorn of a pitiless world. All because young Beatty could not stand the test!

Harry Thaw had everything wealth and refinement could bring into a young life, but he sacrificed all upon unhallowed altars, and with the brand of Cain upon his brow, he was cast into a madman's cell. He could not stand the test.

Lord Byron was Britain's brilliant bard. He could have lived in England's glory and then slept with England's buried greatness in Westminster Abbey, if he had stood the test; but at the age of thirty-seven, when he should have been on an upward flight to greater fame, he drew the "strings of his discordant harp" about him and over them sent the bitter wail:

"My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!"

Younder in a cabin a babe was born. When eleven years of age he helped his mother clear out a patch and raise a garden. Later on he lay in front of a wood fire, studying lessons for the morrow. Later in life he went to college, with only a few cents in his pocket. He went to church and there gave part of his little all in a collection for missionary work. The next Sat.u.r.day he earned a dollar with a jack-plane; at the end of his college term he had paid his way and had seven dollars left. At twenty-eight this young man was in the senate of his state, at thirty-six he was in Congress, and twenty-seven years from the time James A. Garfield rang the bell of Hiram College for his board he went into the White House as President of the United States.

He could stand the test. Boys, can you stand the test?

During the Spanish American war there was a regiment called the "Rough Riders." It was made up of picked young men from different states of the Union. It was this regiment that made the famous charge up San Juan Hill. At the close of the war, the regiment was mustered out of service. The Colonel, giving his farewell address, said: "You have made an honorable record in war, now go back to your homes and make honorable record in peace."

Sixteen years of that record is made. The Colonel has been President of the United States for seven years of that time. General Leonard Wood has gone to the front of the army, and others of the regiment have become successful professional and business men; but some have gone to jails and penitentiaries, one died not long since in the streets of New York City and was buried in a pauper's grave; some are fugitives from justice.

What is true of that regiment, is in some measure true of every body of young men and boys I meet. In my presence are boys who will be leaders of thought and action twenty years from now in whatever community they dwell. There is a boy before me who will be a successful merchant, there's one who will be a banker, another will be a lawyer, others will lead in other lines. But alas! in my presence now, looking me in the face this minute, there may be a boy, or boys, who will stain with blood the stony path to despair.

Do you say that no such ignominious possibility hangs over any boy in this audience? I tell you it is not always the first, but sometimes the fairest born. I know a man who in his youth drove his father's fine horses, romped and rested on the richest blue-gra.s.s lawn, ate from spotless linen and lived in luxury, who now eats from the bare tables of low saloons, and is often given shelter by an old colored "mammy," who was once his father's slave.