Author: Stephen Leacock
Category: Humorous
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XVI. Simple Stories of Success, or How to Succeed in Life
Let me begin with a sort of parable. Many years ago when I was on thestaff of a great public school, we engaged a new swimming master.
He was the most successful man in that capacity that we had had foryears.
Then one day it was discovered that he couldn't swim.
He was standing at the edge of the swimming tank explaining the breaststroke to the boys in the water.
He lost his balance and fell in. He was drowned.
Or no, he wasn't drowned, I remember,--he was rescued by some of thepupils whom he had taught to swim.
After he was resuscitated by the boys--it was one of the things he hadtaught them--the school dismissed him.
Then some of the boys who were sorry for him taught him how to swim, andhe got a new job as a swimming master in another place.
But this time he was an utter failure. He swam well, but they said hecouldn't _teach_.
So his friends looked about to get him a new job. This was just at thetime when the bicycle craze came in. They soon found the man a positionas an instructor in bicycle riding. As he had never been on a bicycle inhis life, he made an admirable teacher. He stood fast on the ground andsaid, "Now then, all you need is confidence."
Then one day he got afraid that he might be found out. So he went out toa quiet place and got on a bicycle, at the top of a slope, to learn toride it. The bicycle ran away with him. But for the skill and daring ofone of his pupils, who saw him and rode after him, he would have beenkilled.
This story, as the reader sees, is endless. Suffice it to say that theman I speak of is now in an aviation school teaching people to fly. Theysay he is one of the best aviators that ever walked.
According to all the legends and story books, the principal factor insuccess is perseverance. Personally, I think there is nothing in it. Ifanything, the truth lies the other way.
There is an old motto that runs, "If at first you don't succeed, try,try again." This is nonsense. It ought to read, "If at first you don'tsucceed, quit, quit, at once."
If you can't do a thing, more or less, the first time you try, you willnever do it. Try something else while there is yet time.
Let me illustrate this with a story.
I remember, long years ago, at a little school that I attended in thecountry, we had a schoolmaster, who used perpetually to write on theblackboard, in a copperplate hand, the motto that I have just quoted:
"If at first you don't succeed, Try, try, again."
He wore plain clothes and had a hard, determined face. He was studyingfor some sort of preliminary medical examination, and was saving moneyfor a medical course. Every now and then he went away to the city andtried the examination: and he always failed. Each time he came back, hewould write up on the blackboard:
"Try, try again."
And always he looked grimmer and more determined than before. Thestrange thing was that, with all his industry and determination, hewould break out every now and then into drunkenness, and lie round thetavern at the crossroads, and the school would be shut for two days.Then he came back, more fiercely resolute than ever. Even children couldsee that the man's life was a fight. It was like the battle between Goodand Evil in Milton's epics.
Well, after he had tried it four times, the schoolmaster at lastpassed the examination; and he went away to the city in a suit of storeclothes, with eight hundred dollars that he had saved up, to studymedicine. Now it happened that he had a brother who was not a bit likehimself, but was a sort of ne'er-do-well, always hard-up and sponging onother people, and never working.
And when the schoolmaster came to the city and his brother knew thathe had eight hundred dollars, he came to him and got him drinking andpersuaded him to hand over the eight hundred dollars and to let him putit into the Louisiana State lottery. In those days the Louisiana Lotteryhad not yet been forbidden the use of the mails, and you could buy aticket for anything from one dollar up. The Grand Prize was two hundredthousand dollars, and the Seconds were a hundred thousand each.
So the brother persuaded the schoolmaster to put the money in. He saidhe had a system for buying only the tickets with prime numbers, thatwon't divide by anything, and that it must win. He said it was amathematical certainty, and he figured it out with the schoolmaster inthe back room of a saloon, with a box of dominoes on the table to showthe plan of it. He told the schoolmaster that he himself would only taketen per cent of what they made, as a commission for showing the system,and the schoolmaster could have the rest.
So, in a mad moment, the schoolmaster handed over his roll of money, andthat was the last he ever saw of it.
The next morning when he was up he was fierce with rage and remorsefor what he had done. He could not go back to the school, and he had nomoney to go forward. So he stayed where he was in the little hotel wherehe had got drunk, and went on drinking. He looked so fierce and unkemptthat in the hotel they were afraid of him, and the bar-tenders watchedhim out of the corners of their eyes wondering what he would do; becausethey knew that there was only one end possible, and they waited for itto come. And presently it came. One of the bar-tenders went up to theschoolmaster's room to bring up a letter, and he found him lying on thebed with his face grey as ashes, and his eyes looking up at the ceiling.He was stone dead. Life had beaten him.
And the strange thing was that the letter that the bartender carriedup that morning was from the management of the Louisiana Lottery. Itcontained a draft on New York, signed by the treasurer of the State ofLouisiana, for two hundred thousand dollars. The schoolmaster had wonthe Grand Prize.
The above story, I am afraid, is a little gloomy. I put it down merelyfor the moral it contained, and I became so absorbed in telling it thatI almost forgot what the moral was that it was meant to convey. But Ithink the idea is that if the schoolmaster had long before abandoned thestudy of medicine, for which he was not fitted, and gone in, let us say,for playing the banjo, he might have become end-man in a minstrel show.Yes, that was it.
Let me pass on to other elements in success.
I suppose that anybody will admit that the peculiar quality thatis called initiative--the ability to act promptly on one's ownjudgement--is a factor of the highest importance.
I have seen this illustrated two or three times in a very strikingfashion.
I knew, in Toronto--it is long years ago--a singularly bright young manwhose name was Robinson. He had had some training in the iron and steelbusiness, and when I knew him was on the look out for an opening.
I met him one day in a great hurry, with a valise in his hand.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"Over to England," he said. "There is a firm in Liverpool that haveadvertised that they want an agent here, and I'm going over to apply forthe job."
"Can't you do it by letter?" I asked.
"That's just it," said Robinson, with a chuckle, "all the other menwill apply by letter. I'll go right over myself and get there as soon orsooner than the letters. I'll be the man on the spot, and I'll get thejob."
He was quite right. He went over to Liverpool, and was back in afortnight with English clothes and a big salary.
But I cannot recommend his story to my friends. In fact, it should notbe told too freely. It is apt to be dangerous.
I remember once telling this story of Robinson to a young man calledTomlinson who was out of a job. Tomlinson had a head two sizes too big,and a face like a bun. He had lost three jobs in a bank and two in abroker's office, but he knew his work, and on paper he looked a goodman.
I told him about Robinson, to encourage him, and the story made a greatimpression.
"Say, that was a great scheme, eh?" he kept repeating. He had no commandof words, and always said the same thing over and over.
A few days later I met Tomlinson in the street with a valise in hishand.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"I'm off to Mexico," he answered. "They're advertisin
g for a Canadianteller for a bank in Tuscapulco. I've sent my credentials down, andI'm going to follow them right up in person. In a thing like this, thepersonal element is everything."
So Tomlinson went down to Mexico and he travelled by sea to MexicoCity, and then with a mule train to Tuscapulco. But the mails, with hiscredentials, went by land and got there two days ahead of him.
When Tomlinson got to Tuscapulco he went into the bank and he spoke tothe junior manager and told him what he came for. "I'm awfully sorry,"the junior manager said, "I'm afraid that this post has just beenfilled." Then he went into an inner room to talk with the manager. "Thetellership that you wanted a Canadian for," he asked, "didn't you saythat you have a man already?"
"Yes," said the manager, "a brilliant young fellow from Toronto; hisname is Tomlinson, I have his credentials here--a first-class man. I'vewired him to come right along, at our expense, and we'll keep the jobopen for him ten days."
"There's a young man outside," said the junior, "who wants to apply forthe job."
"Outside?" exclaimed the manager. "How did he get here?"
"Came in on the mule train this morning: says he can do the work andwants the job."
"What's he like?" asked the manager.
The junior shook his head.
"Pretty dusty looking customer," he said. "Shifty looking."
"Same old story," murmured the manager. "It's odd how these fellowsdrift down here, isn't it? Up to something crooked at home, I suppose.Understands the working of a bank, eh? I guess he understands it alittle too well for my taste. No, no," he continued, tapping the papersthat lay on the table, "now that we've got a first-class man likeTomlinson, let's hang on to him. We can easily wait ten days, and thecost of the journey is nothing to the bank as compared with getting aman of Tomlinson's stamp. And, by the way, you might telephone to theChief of Police and get him to see to it that this loafer gets out oftown straight off."
So the Chief of Police shut up Tomlinson in the calaboose and then senthim down to Mexico City under a guard. By the time the police were donewith him he was dead broke, and it took him four months to get back toToronto; when he got there, the place in Mexico had been filled longago.
But I can imagine that some of my readers might suggest that I havehitherto been dealing only with success in a very limited way, and thatmore interest would lie in discussing how the really great fortunes aremade.
Everybody feels an instinctive interest in knowing how our greatcaptains of industry, our financiers and railroad magnates made theirmoney.
Here the explanation is really a very simple one. There is, in fact,only one way to amass a huge fortune in business or railway management.One must begin at the bottom. One must mount the ladder from the lowestrung. But this lowest rung is everything. Any man who can stand upon itwith his foot well poised, his head erect, his arms braced and his eyedirected upward, will inevitably mount to the top.
But after all--I say this as a kind of afterthought in conclusion--whybother with success at all? I have observed that the successful peopleget very little real enjoyment out of life. In fact the contrary istrue. If I had to choose--with an eye to having a really pleasantlife--between success and ruin, I should prefer ruin every time. I haveseveral friends who are completely ruined--some two or three times--ina large way of course; and I find that if I want to get a reallygood dinner, where the champagne is just as it ought to be, and wherehospitality is unhindered by mean thoughts of expense, I can get it bestat the house of a ruined man.