From “The Commonplace Philosopher in Town and Country.”

IT is interesting to look at the various arts and devices by which men have Got On. Judicious puffing is a great thing. But it must be very judicious. Some people irritate one by their constant stories as to their own great doings. I have known people who had really done considerable things, yet who did not get the credit they deserved, just because they were given to vaporing of what they had done. It is much better to have friends and relatives to puff you, to record what a splendid fellow you are, and what wonderful events have befallen you. Even here, if you become known as one of a set who puff each other, your laudations will do harm instead of good. It is a grand thing to have relations and friends who have the power to actually confer material success. You have known men at the bar, to whom some powerful relative gave a tremendous lift at starting in their profession. Of course this would in some cases only make their failure more apparent, unless they were really equal to the work to which they were set. There is a cry against nepotism. It will not be shared in by the Nepotes. It must be a fine thing to be one of them. Unhappily, they must always be a very small minority; and thus the cry against them will be the voice of a great majority. I cannot but observe that the names of men who hold canonries at cathedrals, and other valuable preferments in the church, are frequently the same as the name of the bishop of the diocese. I do not complain of that. It is the plain intention of Providence that the children should suffer for their fathers’ sins, and gain by their fathers’ rise. It is utterly impossible to start all human beings for the race of life on equal terms. It is utterly impossible to bring all men up to a rope stretched across the course, and make all start fair. If a man be a drunken blackguard, or a heartless fool, his children must suffer for it, must start at a disadvantage. No human power can prevent that. And on the other hand, if a man be industrious and able, and rise to great eminence, his children gain by all this. Robert Stephenson had a splendid start, because old George, his father, got on so nobly. Lord Stanley entered political life at an immense advantage, because he was Lord Derby’s son. And if any reader of this page had some valuable office to give away, and had a son, brother, or nephew who deserved it as well as anybody else, and who he could easily think deserved it a great deal better than anybody else, I have little doubt that the reader would give that valuable office to the son, brother, or nephew. I have known, indeed, magnanimous men who acted otherwise; who in exercising abundant patronage suffered no nepotism. It was a positive disadvantage to be related to these men; they would not give their relatives ordinary justice. The fact of your being connected with them made it tolerably sure that you would never get anything they had to give. All honor to such men! Yet they surpass average humanity so far, that I do not severely blame those who act on lower motives. I do not find much fault with a certain bishop who taught me theology in my youth, because I see that he has made his son a canon in his cathedral. I notice, without indignation, that the individual who holds the easy and lucrative office of associate in certain courts of law bears the same name with the chief-justice. You have heard how Lord Ellenborough was once out riding on horseback, when word was brought him of the death of a man who held a sinecure office with a revenue of some thousands a year. Lord Ellenborough had the right of appointment to that office. He instantly resolved to appoint his son. But the thought struck him that he might die before reaching home; he might fall from his horse, or the like. And so the eminent judge took from his pocket a piece of paper and a pencil, and then and there wrote upon his saddle a formal appointment of his son to that wealthy place. And as it was a place which notoriously was to be given, not to a man who should deserve it, but merely to a man who might be lucky enough to get it, I do not know that Lord Ellenborough deserved to be greatly blamed. In any case, his son, as he quarterly pocketed the large payment for doing nothing, would doubtless hold the blame of mankind as of very little account.

  But whether you Get On by having friends who cry you up, or by having friends who can materially advance you, of course it is your luck to have such friends. We all know that it is “the accident of an accident” that makes a man succeed to a peerage or an estate. And though trumpeting be a great fact and power, still your luck comes in to say whether the trumpet shall in your case be successful. One man, by judicious puffing, gets a great name; another, equally deserving, and apparently in exactly the same circumstances, fails to get it. No doubt the dog who gets an ill name, even if he deserves the ill name, deserves it no more than various other sad dogs who pass scot free. Over all events, all means and ends in this world, there rules God’s inscrutable sovereignty. And to our view, that direction appears quite arbitrary. “One shall be taken, and the other left.” “Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated.” “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?” A sarcastic London periodical lately declared that the way to attain eminence in a certain walk of life was to “combine mediocrity of talent with family affliction.” And it is possible that instances might be indicated in which that combination led to very considerable position. But there are many more cases in which the two things co-existed in a very high degree without leading to any advancement whatsoever. It is all luck again.

  A way in which small men sometimes Get On is by finding ways to be helpful to bigger men. Those bigger men have occasional opportunities of helping those who have been helpful to them. If you yourself, or some near relation of yours, yield effectual support to a candidate at a keenly contested county election, you may possibly be repaid by influence in your favor brought to bear upon the government of the day. From a bishopric down to a beadleship I have known such means serve valuable ends. It is a great thing to have any link, however humble, and however remote, that connects you with a secretary of state, or any member of the administration. Political tergiversation is a great thing. Judicious ratting, at a critical period, will generally secure some one considerable reward. In a conservative institution to stand almost alone in professing very liberal opinions, or in a liberal institution to stand almost alone in professing conservative opinions, will probably cause you to Get On. The leaders of parties are likely to reward those who among the faithless are faithful to them, and who hold by them under difficulties. Still, luck comes in here. While some will attain great rewards by professing opinions very inconsistent with their position, others by doing the same things merely bring themselves into universal ridicule and contempt. It is a powerful thing to have abundant impudence, to be quite ready to ask for whatever you want. Worthier men wait till their merits are found out: you don’t. You may possibly get what you ask, and then you may snap your fingers in the face of the worthier man. By a skillful dodge A got something which ought to have come to B. Still A can drive in dignity past B, covering him with mud from his chariot wheels. There was a man in the last century who was made a bishop by George III. for having published a poem on the death of George II. That poem declared that George II. was removed by Providence to heaven because he was too good for this world. You know what kind of man George II. was; you know whether even Bishop Porteus could possibly have thought he was speaking the truth in publishing that most despicable piece of toadyism. Yet Bishop Porteus was really a good man, and died in the odor of sanctity. He was merely a little yielding. Honesty would have stood in the way of his Getting On; and so honesty had to make way for the time. Many people know that a certain bishop was to have been made Archbishop of Canterbury, but that he threw away his chance by an act of injudicious honesty. On one occasion he opposed the court, under very strong conscientious convictions of duty. If he had just sat still, and refrained from bearing testimony to what he held for truth, he would have Got On much further than he ever did. I am very sure the good man never regretted that he had acted honestly….

  It is worth remembering, as further proof how little you can count on any means certainly conducing to the end of Getting On, that the most opposite courses of conduct have led men to great success. To be the toady of a great man is a familiar art of self-advancement; there once was a person who by doing extremely dirty work for a notorious peer, attained a considerable place in the government of this country. But it is a question of luck after all. Sometimes it has been the making of a man to insult a duke, or to bully a chief-justice. It made him a popular favorite; it enlisted general sympathy on his side; it gained him credit for nerve and courage. But public feeling, and the feeling of the dispensers of patronage in all walks of life, oscillates so much that at different times the most contradictory qualities may commend a man for preferment. You may have known a man who was much favored by those in power, though he was an extremely outspoken, injudicious, and almost reckless person. It is only at rare intervals that such a man finds favor; a grave, steady, and reliable man, who will never say or do anything outrageous, is for the most part preferred. And now and then you may find a highly cultivated congregation, wearied by having had for its minister for many years a remarkably correct and judicious, though tiresome preacher, making choice for his successor of a brilliant and startling orator, very deficient in taste and sense. A man’s luck in all these cases will appear, if it bring him into notice just at the time when his special characteristics are held in most estimation. If for some specific purpose you desire to have a horse which has only three legs, it is plain that if two horses present themselves for your choice, one with three legs and the other with four, you will select and prefer the animal with three. It will be the best so far as concerns you. And its good luck will appear in this, that it has come to your notice just when your liking happened to be a somewhat peculiar one. In like manner you may find people say, In filling up this place at the present time we don’t want a clever man, or a well-informed man, or an accomplished and presentable man; we want a meek man, a humble man, a man who will take snubbing freely, a rough man, a man like ourselves. And I have known many cases in which, of several competitors, one was selected just for the possession of qualities which testified his inferiority to the others. But then, in this case, that which was absolutely the worst was the best for the particular case. The people wanted a horse with three legs; and when such an animal presented itself, they very naturally preferred him to the other horses which had four legs. The horses with four legs naturally complained of the choice, and thought themselves badly used when the screw was taken in preference. They were wrong. There are places for which a rough man is better than a smooth one, a dirty man than a clean one, in the judgment (that is) of the people who have the filling up of the place. I certainly think their judgment is wrong. But it is their judgment, and of course they act upon it.

  As regards the attainment of very great and unusual wealth by business or the like, it is very plain how much there is of luck. A certain degree of business talent is of course necessary in the man who rises in a few years from nothing to enormous wealth; but it is Providence that says who shall draw the great prize,—for other men with just as much ability and industry entirely fail. Talent and industry in business may make sure, unless in very extraordinary circumstances, of decent success; but Providence fixes who shall make four hundred thousand a year. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor riches to men of understanding—that is, their riches are not necessarily in proportion to their understanding. Trickery and cheating, not crossed by ill luck, may gain great wealth. I shall not name several instances which will occur to every one. But I suppose, my friend, that you and I would cut off our right hand before we should Get On in worldly wealth by such means as these. You must make up your mind, however, that you will not be envious when you see the fine house and the horses and carriages of some successful trickster. All this indeed might have been had, but you would not have it at the price. That worldly success is a great deal too dear which is to be gained only by sullying your integrity. And I gladly believe that I know many men whom no material bribe would tempt to what is mean or dishonest.

  There is something curious in the feeling which many people cherish towards an acquaintance who becomes a successful man. Getting On gives some people mortal offense. To them success is an unpardonable crime. They absolutely hate the man that Gets On. Timon, you remember, lost the affection of those who knew him when he was ruined; but depend upon it, there are those who would have hated Timon much worse had he suddenly met some great piece of good fortune. I have said that envious and malicious people can better bear the success of a man whom they do not know. They cannot stand it when an old school companion shoots ahead. They cannot stand it when a man in their own profession attains to eminence. They diligently thwart such a one’s plans, and then chuckle over their failure, saying, with looks of deadly malice: “Ah, this will do him a great deal of good!”

  But now, my reader, I am about to stop. Let me briefly sum up my philosophy of Getting On. It is this: A wise man in this world will not set his heart on Getting On, and will not push very much to Get On. He will do his best, and humbly take, with thankfulness, what the Hand above sends him. It is not worth while to push. The whole machinery that tends to earthly success is so capricious and uncertain in its action that no man can count upon it, and no wise man will. A chance word, a look, the turning of a straw, may make your success or mar it. A man meets you on the street and asks, Who is the person for such a place, great or small? You suddenly think of somebody and say, He is your man; and the thing is settled. A hundred poor fellows are disappointed. You did not know about them, or their names did not occur to you. You put your hand into a hat, and drew out a name. You stuck a hook into your memory and this name came out. And that has made the man’s fortune. And the upshot of the whole matter is, that such an infinitude of little fortuitous circumstances may either further or prevent our Getting On; the whole game is so complicated that the right and happy course is humbly to do your duty and leave the issue with God. Let me say it again: “Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not!” It is not worth while. All your seeking will not make you sure of getting them; the only things you will make sure of will be fever and toil and suspense. We shall not push or scheme or dodge for worldly success. We shall succeed exactly as well; and we shall save ourselves much that is wearisome and degrading. Let us trust in God, my friend, and do right, and we shall Get On as much as he thinks good for us. And it is not the greatest thing to Get On—I mean, to Get On in matters that begin and end upon this world. There is a progress in which we are sure of success if we earnestly aim at it, which is the best Getting On of all. Let us “grow in grace.” Let us try, by God’s aid, to grow better, kinder, humbler, more patient, more earnest to do good to all. If the germ of the better life be implanted in us by the blessed Spirit, and tended by him day by day; if we trust our Savior and love our God, then our whole existence, here and hereafter, will be a glorious progress from good to better. We shall always be Getting On.