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A Man Without Ambition—
Is a Watch Without
a Mainspring
* r »
But Don't Be Like the Toad That Swelled Up Until He Burst.
A reader s rids in this letter, which we answer:
Editor The Geoi gian :
Deal Sil' You pt.-iif- work and ambition in a man. Yet. Is a man not
happi-r .it : more contented if h<- remains In the humble place anti station of
his birth" W> are told a man should make the most of himself and be
sm . • fill and ambitious Wouldn’t mtr prominent men be far happier if they
<iios<- to be poor atid unknown" Anyhow, after they are dead, what dlffer
,-a I mis it make whether they were pl omlm-nt or rustles? Kindly give your
vi, is to . man's attitude toward ambition and contentment and happf
r, vs Is it a man’s duty to advance In the world instead of remaining in the
humbb st station Yours sincerely. INTERESTED.
That inlt restiu«r two-lcoift'd animal in charge of this earth,
called man - wound up in a complicated fashion. Twelve pas
sions. or instincts, or attractions name tlwin as you please
animate and control Imp.
(If these twelve passions. XIX E are actual moving forces,
THREE direct ami control the other nine.
Among the nine MOVING forces in man there are tluree
that dominate we will ignore the others for the present.
First, ami most necessary, is THE INSTINCT OF SELF
PRESERVATION. That instinct kept men alive, forced them to
continue living on this earth under horrible conditions of cold
and hunger and brutality Nature’s wisdom made the instinct of
self-preservation very powerful in primitive man to keep him on
this earth to do his work here. In the savage man of thirty thou
sand years ago. and of today, the instinct of self preservation is
all powerful You see that m a burning theater, a sinking ship
or elsewhere, when the real nature of man comes out.
The second great moving force in mankind is the PATER
NAL INSTINCT, the instinct of reproduction. This guarantees
that there shall be no other human brings on earth to follow each
generation as it passes away. In the savage, brutal man the in
stinct of reproduction is the strongest, next to the nstinct of
self preservation.
Tie third great passion of the human mind is AMBITION,
our desire for change, for improvement.
As we have told you before and shall often repeat, the in
st net of SELF-PRESERVATION keeps ,ns on this earth, the
PATERNAL INSTINCT provides others to carrv on our work
after death. AMBITION PREVENTS STAGNATION, BRINGS
ABOI'T PROGRESS.
'file friend whose letter we quote is one of many that ask
whet lie" ambition is realh worth while, what sort of ambition a
man ought to have. etc.
I'he first question may be disregarded. If you have.ambition,
Yo| ’VE GOT IT. It's like the measles, and it doesn't make any
difference whether it is worth while or not it must run its
course.
Every human being has ambition in youth. The young man
or woman without ambition is a creature almost unthinkable.
As we advance in years. however, our forces diminish in in
tensify for we have not yet reached the real stage of develop
ment which will bring about constant increase of intellectual force
and interest, at least for the first hundred years of life.
Ambition is the human emotion that dies most quickly. It is
attacked and devoured by just such questions as our friend puts
in h s letter.
I'he stomach says: “Why not feed me well and enjoy my
digestive delights, instead of wasting your energies trying to do
something you never can do?”
\ unity saws: “Why don't you give up your foolish ideas of
duty ’ Pile one dollar on another, dress well, cultivate the good
opinion of your neighbors, be liked and approved by little minds,
die fat and happy.”
Ihe mind gels tired of repeated failures, it wants rest and
begs for it.
Every little opportunity in life, every little comfort, fights
against man's ambition, if his ambition be really high.
The average man at thirty begins already to put aside his
dreams of eighteen and twenty.
At forty he has settled down into a little rut that means no
more grbyvth.
At fifty he has reached a stage where he looks pitvinglv
down upon the nu n who possess the ambitious force that hi* has
lost, and that he now calls “foolish dreamings.”
Our friend asks: “ \n.y how. after they are dead what differ
ence does it make whether they were prominent or rustics’.’”
In our opinion, it makes a great deal of difference. It can
not be possible that the sell conscious soul doing the work of
cosmic wisdom in the ear" of this globe should be perishable.
J 1 not believable that, in a universe where we know
MAI 11. I y and !■ OR( )•. t, > lie i ndest ruet ible, the one thing to be de
stroyed should be that higher compound force which we call the
hitman soui v hieh has within itself the power to applv and to
distribute the force and the matter attached to this globe.
I’he soul Ml ST be immortal, for -all through the govern
ment ot the universe yve see justice and kindness. It is not be
lievable that men should be allowed to suffer as they have suf
d thout recompense hereafter. It is not believable, espee
tally, that the passionate desire for immortality should be placed
in men only to be disappointed.
If we are immortal and we MI ST be- there is surely a re
ward for the soul that tries The soul in yvhieh ambition per
sists must be a high r soul than that yvhieh gives in; and its
state must be higher when it haves this body.
Various religions reward deserving men in various ways—
with happy hunting grounds, with well stocked seraglios, with
ihe peaceful nonentity lhat the worn-out Hindoo craves, with the
-"Id n crown and th<- hone of solid gold and precious stones
y\ hieh s.ctned «I >-si>i ■ ■ to the primitive civilization of the East.
Rewarded we SHALL be presumably along lines of natu
ral growth: along the lines of our owii desert.
I>ut I.living the g.oomiest possible view ot the question that
is asked, and assuming that it does NOT make any difference to
a man hereafter whether he did well or ill on earth, we ask in
turn :
How about the man that I yes selfishly, tills the little stom
aeh. decorates the foolish body fam-ifully lives only for him
self’ ‘ '
What good will lhat do HIM after he is dead"
What good will it do him. after he s dead, to have eaten and
drunk so much :
Life passes as a second, and even the dull unimaginative
man who believes that this life ends it all might well determine
Continued in Last Column
1
The Atlanta Georgian
< The Use of a Great Man
One Has Recently Died m France, and People Are Inquiring What He ITVz.f Good For
By GARRETT P. SERVISS
A GRAND funeral was given-in
Paris some weeks ago to
Henri Poincare, of whom,
probably, many readers of these
lines have never heard. 'l'he pro
cession to the grave was imposing.
There marched, bareheaded,
through the streets, between side
walks crowded with spectators,
most of whom also respectfully re
moved their hats, a long double line
of the most distinguished living
ErenChrnen. When the grave was
reaehed impressive discourses were
pronounced by m. Gufst'hau, who
spoke for the government and the
university; by M. C’laretie. who rep
resented the famous Academic
krancaise; by M. Palnleve, who was
the mouthpiece of the Academy of
Science", and by many others w hose
nairt"* arc better known Io the
public than was that of the subject
of their discourses.
All the newspapers were filled
with praise of the dead man, and
all the illustrated journals printed
portraits of him. Everybody was
assured, and the assurance was re
peated from mouth to mouth, that
Prance had lost one of her great
est lights whose renown would il
lustrate the pages of her history.
Everybody felt proud because his
country had produced so mighty a
genius.
Hut a singular fact soon became
evident, viz., that among the hun
dreds of thousands who repeated
the praise of this immense genius
hardly any one had a definite Idea
of what he was or of what he had
done. They only knew that, some
how. he had been A GREAT MAN.
During his lifetime It was said
that there were only tw-o or three
mon In all Europe who could com
prehend him.
It Is almost certain that among
those who pronounced euiogiums at
his tomb there was none who could
follow his work with complete un
derstanding. Most of them did not
know even the A-B-C of it
Who He Was.
Edr Henri Poincare was a very
greaf mathematician, perhaps the
greatest since Laplace and La
grange. whom Napoleon, with his
vast practical genius, could not un
derstand. For most people mathe
matics. in its higher forms, is a
closed book.
Naturally, then, after the first
sensation caused by the departure
of this great genius had died away,
the question began to be asked:
“What was he good for, after all’.”'
The question has been asked, and
rather Indefinitely answered, in
many newspapers. Ii can not be
answered by giving a list of his
1,500 works, for < ven the most pop
ular of them, like the hook on “Sci
ence add Hypothesis," are full of
things which only the expert can
read understandingly, while most
of them are addressed to the ELITE
of science, the narrow inner circle,
M.VIII, Him Ul'iiii lilt Itll t.
Courtesy in Business
By ELBERT IH’BBARD
Copyright, 1912, by Intprnatior.al News Service.
•t v t E an ruled by our habit*.
\/V Eirst we form our habits,
and then our habits form us.
We are what we are on account
of what we have thought, said or
done. After having done a thing
once, there is a t< ndency in the
brain to do it again. If continued,
wo get the habit; that is. we do the
thing without thinking. Just as a
matter of course. Thus does habit
become second nature.
What kind of people will we be
in Elysium?" they asked Socrates
four hundred years before Christ.
And his answer was, "You will be
tlie same kind of people you are to
day, because this life Is a prepara
tion for the next. Just as today is a
preparation for tomorrow."
Any man with the grouch habit,
the "piker" habit, the frown habit,
the cigarette habit, the dope habit,
the boose habit, is on the greased
chute, and lie himself is swabbing
tin slide Also, there is a sort of
general disposition on the part of
everybody to give him a push down
the road to Davy .Jones' locker
All Good Things Are Catching.
In the heart of all of us is the
tendency to pass back everything
that Is handed to us.
Once there was a man who said.
"If 1 had been around that day
when the Creator wns making the
world I would have made a few sug
gestions."
And one of the auditors said.
"What would you have proposed?"
"1 would have made good health
catching instead of bad."
That is Just where the critic
lapsed. The fact is, good health is
catching All good things are catch
ing
If a man smiles waves his hand
at you as you walk down the street
in the morning, you wave jour hand
back and smile In return uncon
sciously. ami often one little expe
rience like this will key for you
the day joyously
Courtesy, kindness. good-will,
generosity, liberality are all catch
ing.
Nothing is so (ontigious as a
smile Try it on the tlrst man you
Cast thy bread upon the waters
WEDNESDAY, A (’GUST 28. 1912.
1i « 1 111 ||i ‘ ii iit I i
iMllllittt JuKlI 1111
rll
TTK. I
llok <
HENRI POINCARE IN HIS STUDY.
to enter which requires extraor
dinary talent and years of applica
tion
But it does not follow that some
ansyver can not be given. The best
answer is twofold. In the fii®t
place, one great, use of such a man
as Poincare is the stimulation
yvhieh he imparts to the average
human being. He awakes the am
bition of the race by showing of
what it is capable. He is the man
on the top of the apparently inac
cessible mountain, who, bv his
mere presence there, shows to
oliiers the possibility of ascending
it. He is like the late Edward
Whyrnper, waving his cap from the
summit of the terrible Matterhorn.
Anybody with good yvind and
strong muscles inn ascend the
Matterhorn now, because the way
is known.
But Poincare would never have
given an impetus to his fellow be
ings if he had not, like Newton
before him. anil like all great men.
disclaimed the possession of any
superhuman power. Newton said
that all he had done seemed to him
but as the picking up of a pebble
on the shoie of the boundless < ■ i ai;
of knowledge, and Poincare de
clared that lhe mind of man >•
only a flash of lightning, illuminat
ing for a moment a part of th;
Illimitable expanse around.
Bui these tla-dics succeed oni
another, ami the race, as a whola,
retains a little of what each re.
veals and adds to It that which has
already, been acquired. What was
rew-aled to the genius of the great
French mathematician was not al-
ami it shall return after nptny days
buttered, and sotii" an-* with jam
on it.
The advantage and benefit of tel
ephone courtesy is beyond compu
tation.
But the use of the telephone re
quires a certain amount of pa
tience. You must have faith that
the man at the otlur nd of the
line has something to tell you that
is worth saying.
In the big central telephone of
fices operators ar -elected with es
pecial cate as to their voices. A
girl may have brains all right, but
if she has a voice that screams,
screeches or purrs, to that degree
she is incompetent oitlv-r as a tele-
Ballade of Bugs
By .1 AC< IB .1 I.EIBSON.
AIT HEN. seeking joys of solitude,
y I stretch mi-elf beneath a
tiee,
A fussy insect, rough and rude,
With buzzing wings, alights on me,
I drive him off. and then a bee.
I’pon toy Adam's apple sings.
A beetje bites white 1 can't see,
| I hate tin sc bees and bugs and
things.
| I quickly change my attitude
And hide my face within the grass
A jiij-ous jigger, seeking food,
Across my nose attempis to pass.
A most ingenious bug." alas!
Now beats my eardrum with his
w Ings.
1 wonder wher they get the brass.
These most obtrusive bugs and
things
Then speedily my patient mood
And spit its gay depart from me.
1 wilt not be an insect's food,
A centipede's collation free
A hornet spies me f-om a tree
And all his fond relations brings
I <an not Vide their . ompany.
Tipi bv»e me so, these bugs with
stings.
I.'Envoi.
Prince, peasant, clerk, whoe'er you be.
Though nature's joy.- the poet sings.
Just take this humble tip from me—
You'll find uo joy in bugs and things.
ways perfectly clear, even to him
self, while for the majority of mon
it was but a flash in the night
yvhieh showed them nothing. His
successors, guided by the glimpses
he had, will make it all clear, and
thus the domain of knowledge will
be extended.
Additions to Knowledge.
In the second place,i the useful
ness of such a man fls Poincare
consists in the actual additions
that he made to knowledge. These
additions were purely mathemati
cal and incapable of popular ex
planation, but there al’e men who
can understand them, and who,
yvith I HT-.IR successors, will, upon
the basis which he left, erect a new
edifice of science which all can en
ter and admire. There was a time
when Newton's “Prineipia” was as
far beyond the intellectual reach of
the average man as Poincare’s
most abstruse work is today, but
now, thanks to the advance which
it, itself, .inspired, any boy in col
lege. with a mathematical gift and
proper application, can read the
whole “Prineipia” understandingly.
In fact, it has been displaoed by
more recent work, just as Poin
care’s achievements will be super
seded in the future.
Great men of this stamp are the
pioneers of the human intellect, and
happy is the country that can pro
duce one in a century. It is the
Napoleons, whose work is easily
understood, that get the great
monuments; it is these other gen
iuses, whose own times hardly
know them, that uplift the race
phone operator or as a salesman.
To speak distinctly and pleasant
ly >s a fine ait. A good speaking,
voice is not so much a matter of
training as it is of right thinking. A
person who thinks well of himself
and of other people has a voice that
assures. People who tire anxious,
nervous, irritable, harassed, tired,
reveal impatience in their tones.
Any one who uses the telephone,
be he operator or patron, aristocrat
or plebeian, should practice tele
phone courtesy . He should speak
neither too loud nor too low, hut
should endeavor to put a smile into
his voice, and not tears, doubt or
accusation.
Many people, on taking down the'
receiver, will shout. "Who's this?"
Then, not getting an answer, will
say. "Who are you, anyway?” This
is followed up with “What do you
want ? All of which is quite dis
courteous. absurd and inoppor
tune.
Any one taking down tlie re
ceivi r should announce who he Is.
If you wore a salesman, on enter
ing an office you would not shout
at the first man you met, "Who is
this? or "Who tire you?"
W lien you cal] on a person ymu
have in ver before met, you cer
tainly do not demand that he should
reveal his identity until you have
first revealed yours.
You moderate vour voice, and you
speak pleasantly.
On Good Terms With Public.
<>n taking down the receiver,
either to answer a call or to put
one tn. w hen you get your party,
say. I his is Mt*. Brown who is
speaking." .Just assume a pleas
ant attitude of mind, and your voice
w ill follow
1 have noticed that trainmen on
certain railroads for the most part
have pleasant voics. They call
the stations in a way so they ,r>-
umlitstood, and they do not appear
to be bawling bad names at their
enemies. They are the voices of
men who are well nourished, who
get eight hours sleep, who think
Well of themselves, who are proud
of tiii’fi- jobs and proud of th<
for w hich they work
Thus are they placed on good
terms with their colleagues and
with the public.
THE HOME PAPER
Thomas Tapper
Writes on
How To Build a For
tune
V. V- V-
No. 6.—-Getting Rich in a
H u rry
By THOMAS TAPPER.
i.
f I HE statement has recently
1 been made that in one year
the American people con
t:ibuted about seventy-seven mil
lions of dollars to various fake in
vestment t sc hemes. This means
that they dropped the money dpwn
a hole, expecting it to rush up
again in a golden shower. Instead
of that, there was a group of busy
men at the other end of the hole
carrying away the precious stuff in
baskets—for they, too. have famii
lies to support.
The seventy-seven millions of the
preceding paragraph was not the
entire annual crop. This sum was
paid -over to the get-rich-quick
concerns that were closed up by the
postoffice departtrfent: There were
many others that did business
without using the mails and were
undisturbed.
Why is it so easy to sell worth
less paper?
Answer No. I—Peoplel—People want to
get rich in a hurry.
Answer No. 2—Golden promises
make golden dreams. The thing is
so bright we actually are fasci
nated by it. So yve put real money
into a golden dream, and then we
wake up.
H.
A promoter was talking one day
to an humble individual who did
not seem to know much.
"How do you invest your sav
ings?" asked the promoter.
"I put them in a savings bank,”
s-aid the man.
Never Get Poor, Either.
"Well, you will never get rich
that way,” the promoter said.
"No,” answered the humble indi
vidual, "probably not. but I’ll never
get poor that way either.”
In view of the countless ways of
investing money which promise
nothing less than "marvellous re
turns," it takes a good type of mind
to stick to simple, direct ways of
saving. The seventy-seven millions,
of which we have been speaking,
was not the money of rich men. it
belonged to those who could not af
ford to lose it—to widows, and to
wage earners of all classes.
A Man Without Ambition—-
Is a Watch Without
a Mainspring
Continued from First Column.
to do.at least tlie best work possible during his little moment on
llie stage.
There are two strange hours for each human being—
The painful hour of his birth, when he comes into this
world, all unfitted for iU
The responsible hour of his death, when the man who is
conscious looks back over that which he has done.
Be sure that the man who has wasted his time, thought
only of himself, neglected his duty and pushed aside his ambi
tion. can sutfer enough self-reproach in that last hour to make
up for many days of eating and drinking and of empty self-in
dulgence.
The only man worth while is the ambitious man. The only
child or woman worth while is the ambitious child or woman.
Ambition moves the world, as the mainspring moves the
watch hands.
And the human being without ambition is like the watch
without a mainspring.
Such a watch and such a human being, looked at from the
outside, are quite satisfactory smooth and pleasing. BFT THERE
IS XO I SE IX THEM.
The business of every human being is to cherish the spring of
ambition within him. and do what little he can to move forward
the world in general—if he be big enough- or. at least, that little
corner of it in which his life is passed.
The thing to do is to have THE RIGHT AMBITION. Don’t
mistake foolish egotism for ambition.
The frog in La Fontaine's fable was ambitious in the wrong
way. He wauled to be as big as the ox. and he swelled himself
up until h- burst. Vanity- not ambition I —was his mainspring.
We should like to write to the friend whose letter we publish a
few words as to the proper character and direction of ambition,
as we s>e them. That, however, must be reserved for another
■ditorial. This one is long enough.
*
There is a hackneyed quotation which says: “I charge thee,
throw away ambition." The wise man will do just the reverse.
He will keep alive the spark of ambition as a shipwrecked crew
would keep alive their smouldering fire. Once that spark goes
out. a man might as well be dead -he is only a ■-hell, eating,
drinking and breathing, waiting to die. The sooner he dies and
makes room for another, the better
When any one wants you to put
your money into a proposition that
will make you wealthy in a few
weeks, refuse to have anything to
do with it, as a matter of princi
ple. It can not be done. Rosy as
the dream is. it is still a rosy dream ‘
and nothing more.
One of the fundamental rules of
investment is, the higher thq inter
est yield, the greater the risk.
Bonds of the most conservative
character, with the highest guaran
tee as to safety of principal, yield
in the neighborhood of four per
cent; ’sometimes a fraction less or
more.
When some one quietly slips you
information that you can come in,
e on the inside, and get 30 per cent,
or thereabouts—don’t go in. All
the doors are locked, ancl, when
they throw the victims out of the
back window their pockets are
turned inside out.
111.
The banker puts It this way:
Judicious investment is the art of
making the most of your money
WITHOFT EXPOSING IT TO
THE RISK OF LOSS.
“Be Patient,” the Great Rule.
That kind of safety has to be.
paid for in small interest returns.
You may feel that at the rate
your surplus funds get into the
bank you will never get rich. Re
member the remark- of the humble
individual—you will never get poor,
either. The great rule is “be pa
tient.”
In an interview recently, Mr. An
drew Carnegie is reported to have
said this:
I’he trouble with many men of
small means is that they will never
make a beginning, and keep putting
off the time when they have a nu
cleus for investing. The goaf of
the wage-earner in saving should
be to acquire SI,OOO. PRUDENT
INVESTING OF SMALL SUMS
will help him to obtain this first
SI,OOO. Money grows surprisingly,
and if you have none now try the
experiment I suggest of getting
SI,OOO and see if I am not right."
Notice that Mr. Carnegie speaks
of PRUDENT investing—of what?
Os small sums.