Pushing to the Front Part 1

Pus.h.i.+ng to the Front.

by Orison Swett Marden.

FOREWORD

This revised and greatly enlarged edition of "Pus.h.i.+ng to the Front" is the outgrowth of an almost world-wide demand for an extension of the idea which made the original small volume such an ambition-arousing, energizing, inspiring force.

It is doubtful whether any other book, outside of the Bible, has been the turning-point in more lives.

It has sent thousands of youths, with renewed determination, back to school or college, back to all sorts of vocations which they had abandoned in moments of discouragement. It has kept scores of business men from failure after they had given up all hope.

It has helped mult.i.tudes of poor boys and girls to pay their way through college who had never thought a liberal education possible.

The author has received thousands of letters from people in nearly all parts of the world telling how the book has aroused their ambition, changed their ideals and aims, and has spurred them to the successful undertaking of what they before had thought impossible.

The book has been translated into many foreign languages. In j.a.pan and several other countries it is used extensively in the public schools.

Distinguished educators in many parts of the world have recommended its use in schools as a civilization-builder.

Crowned heads, presidents of republics, distinguished members of the British and other parliaments, members of the United States Supreme Court, noted authors, scholars, and eminent people in many parts of the world, have eulogized this book and have thanked the author for giving it to the world.

This volume is full of the most fascinating romances of achievement under difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant endings, of stirring stories of struggles and triumphs. It gives inspiring stories of men and women who have brought great things to pa.s.s. It gives numerous examples of the triumph of mediocrity, showing how those of ordinary ability have succeeded by the use of ordinary means. It shows how invalids and cripples even have triumphed by perseverance and will over seemingly insuperable difficulties.

The book tells how men and women have seized common occasions and made them great; it tells of those of average ability who have succeeded by the use of ordinary means, by dint of indomitable will and inflexible purpose. It tells how poverty and hards.h.i.+p have rocked the cradle of the giants of the race. The book points out that most people do not utilize a large part of their effort because their mental att.i.tude does not correspond with their endeavor, so that although working for one thing, they are really expecting something else; and it is what we expect that we tend to get.

No man can become prosperous while he really expects or half expects to remain poor, for holding the poverty thought, keeping in touch with poverty-producing conditions, discourages prosperity.

Before a man can lift himself he must lift his thoughts. When we shall have learned to master our thought habits, to keep our minds open to the great divine inflow of life force, we shall have learned the truths of human endowment, human possibility.

The book points out the fact that what is called success may be failure; that when men love money so much that they sacrifice their friends.h.i.+ps, their families, their home life, sacrifice position, honor, health, everything for the dollar, their life is a failure, although they may have acc.u.mulated money. It shows how men have become rich at the price of their ideals, their character, at the cost of everything n.o.blest, best, and truest in life. It preaches the larger doctrine of equality; the equality of will and purpose which paves a clear path even to the Presidential chair for a Lincoln or a Garfield, for any one who will pay the price of study and struggle. Men who feel themselves badly handicapped, crippled by their lack of early education, will find in these pages great encouragement to broaden their horizon, and will get a practical, helpful, sensible education in their odd moments and half-holidays.

Dr. Marden, in "Pus.h.i.+ng to the Front," shows that the average of the leaders are not above the average of ability. They are ordinary people, but of extraordinary persistence and perseverance. It is a storehouse of n.o.ble incentive, a treasury of precious sayings. There is inspiration and encouragement and helpfulness on every page. It teaches the doctrine that no limits can be placed on one's career if he has once learned the alphabet and has push; that there are no barriers that can say to aspiring talent, "Thus far, and no farther."

Encouragement is its keynote; it aims to arouse to honorable exertion those who are drifting without aim, to awaken dormant ambitions in those who have grown discouraged in the struggle for success.

THE PUBLISHERS.

PUs.h.i.+NG TO THE FRONT

CHAPTER I

THE MAN AND THE OPPORTUNITY

No man is born into this world whose work is not born with him.--LOWELL.

Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.--GARFIELD.

Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost of possible achievement--these are the martial virtues which must command success.--AUSTIN PHELPS.

"I will find a way or make one."

There never was a day that did not bring its own opportunity for doing good that never could have been done before, and never can be again.--W. H. BURLEIGH.

"Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, _begin_ it."

"If we succeed, what will the world say?" asked Captain Berry in delight, when Nelson had explained his carefully formed plan before the battle of the Nile.

"There is no if in the case," replied Nelson. "That we shall succeed is certain. Who may live to tell the tale is a very different question." Then, as his captains rose from the council to go to their respective s.h.i.+ps, he added: "Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey." His quick eye and daring spirit saw an opportunity of glorious victory where others saw only probable defeat.

"Is it POSSIBLE to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers who had been sent to explore the dreaded pa.s.s of St. Bernard. "Perhaps,"

was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of _possibility_."

"FORWARD THEN," said the Little Corporal, without heeding their account of apparently insurmountable difficulties. England and Austria laughed in scorn at the idea of transporting across the Alps, where "no wheel had ever rolled, or by any possibility could roll," an army of sixty thousand men, with ponderous artillery, tons of cannon b.a.l.l.s and baggage, and all the bulky munitions of war. But the besieged Ma.s.sena was starving in Genoa, and the victorious Austrians thundered at the gates of Nice, and Napoleon was not the man to fail his former comrades in their hour of peril.

When this "impossible" deed was accomplished, some saw that it might have been done long before. Others excused themselves from encountering such gigantic obstacles by calling them insuperable. Many a commander had possessed the necessary supplies, tools, and rugged soldiers, but lacked the grit and resolution of Bonaparte, who did not shrink from mere difficulties, however great, but out of his very need made and mastered his opportunity.

Grant at New Orleans had just been seriously injured by a fall from his horse, when he received orders to take command at Chattanooga, so sorely beset by the Confederates that its surrender seemed only a question of a few days; for the hills around were all aglow by night with the camp-fires of the enemy, and supplies had been cut off.

Though in great pain, he immediately gave directions for his removal to the new scene of action.

On transports up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and one of its tributaries; on a litter borne by horses for many miles through the wilderness; and into the city at last on the shoulders of four men, he was taken to Chattanooga. Things a.s.sumed a different aspect immediately. _A master_ had arrived who was _equal to the situation_. The army felt the grip of his power. Before he could mount his horse he ordered an advance, and although the enemy contested the ground inch by inch, the surrounding hills were soon held by Union soldiers.

Were these things the result of chance, or were they compelled by the indominable determination of the injured General?

Did things _adjust themselves_ when Horatius with two companions held ninety thousand Tuscans at bay until the bridge across the Tiber had been destroyed?--when Leonidas at Thermopylae checked the mighty march of Xerxes?--when Themistocles, off the coast of Greece, shattered the Persian's Armada?--when Caesar, finding his army hard pressed, seized spear and buckler, fought while he reorganized his men, and s.n.a.t.c.hed victory from defeat?--when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of Austrian spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed to freedom?--when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in which he was personally engaged?--when Wellington fought in many climes without ever being conquered?--when Ney, on a hundred fields, changed apparent disaster into brilliant triumph?--when Perry left the disabled _Lawrence_, rowed to the _Niagara_, and silenced the British guns?--when Sheridan arrived from Winchester just as the Union retreat was becoming a rout, and turned the tide by riding along the line?--when Sherman, though sorely pressed, signaled his men to hold the fort, and they, knowing that their leader was coming, held it?

History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized occasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less resolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the world before them.

True, there has been but one Napoleon; but, on the other hand, the Alps that oppose the progress of the average American youth are not as high or dangerous as the summits crossed by the great Corsican.

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. _Seize common occasions and make them great_.

On the morning of September 6, 1838, a young woman in the Longstone Lighthouse, between England and Scotland, was awakened by shrieks of agony rising above the roar of wind and wave. A storm of unwonted fury was raging, and her parents could not hear the cries; but a telescope showed nine human beings clinging to the windla.s.s of a wrecked vessel whose bow was hanging on the rocks half a mile away. "We can do nothing," said William Darling, the light-keeper. "Ah, yes, we must go to the rescue," exclaimed his daughter, pleading tearfully with both father and mother, until the former replied: "Very well, Grace, I will let you persuade me, though it is against my better judgment." Like a feather in a whirlwind the little boat was tossed on the tumultuous sea, but, borne on the blast that swept the cruel surge, the shrieks of those s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors seemed to change her weak sinews into cords of steel. Strength hitherto unsuspected came from somewhere, and the heroic girl pulled one oar in even time with her father. At length the nine were safely on board. "G.o.d bless you; but ye're a bonny English la.s.s," said one poor fellow, as he looked wonderingly upon this marvelous girl, who that day had done a deed which added more to England's glory than the exploits of many of her monarchs.

"If you will let me try, I think I can make something that will do,"

said a boy who had been employed as a scullion at the mansion of Signer Faliero, as the story is told by George Cary Eggleston. A large company had been invited to a banquet, and just before the hour the confectioner, who had been making a large ornament for the table, sent word that he had spoiled the piece. "You!" exclaimed the head servant, in astonishment; "and who are you?" "I am Antonio Canova, the grandson of Pisano, the stone-cutter," replied the pale-faced little fellow.

"And pray, what can you do?" asked the major-domo. "I can make you something that will do for the middle of the table, if you'll let me try." The servant was at his wits' end, so he told Antonio to go ahead and see what he could do. Calling for some b.u.t.ter, the scullion quickly molded a large crouching lion, which the admiring major-domo placed upon the table.

Dinner was announced, and many of the most noted merchants, princes, and n.o.blemen of Venice were ushered into the dining-room. Among them were skilled critics of art work. When their eyes fell upon the b.u.t.ter lion, they forgot the purpose for which they had come in their wonder at such a work of genius. They looked at the lion long and carefully, and asked Signer Faliero what great sculptor had been persuaded to waste his skill upon such a temporary material. Faliero could not tell; so he asked the head servant, who brought Antonio before the company.

When the distinguished guests learned that the lion had been made in a short time by a scullion, the dinner was turned into a feast in his honor. The rich host declared that he would pay the boy's expenses under the best masters, and he kept his word. Antonio was not spoiled by his good fortune, but remained at heart the same simple, earnest, faithful boy who had tried so hard to become a good stone-cutter in the shop of Pisano. Some may not have heard how the boy Antonio took advantage of this first great opportunity; but all know of Canova, one of the greatest sculptors of all time.

_Weak men wait for opportunities, strong men make them_.

"The best men," says E. H. Chapin, "are not those who have waited for chances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the chance; and made chance the servitor."