Arthur Stanwood Pier

“ In its attenuation there may be a sharpening of wits and hence a success in life—of a kind—achieved by craft or duplicity or deviousness, and guarded by a suspicious vigilance; the man of spirit scorns a success so won and so preserved. If, like Stevenson, he was born a weakling, his path is indeed laborious and must be hewn out of the very rock of adversity.
But the man of great bodily vigor, who in his boyhood was of conspicuous strength among his fellows,—how does he ever fail of leadership and eminence in whatever career he chooses? ”

“ All of us have our human adversaries who are to be thwarted; their defeat, however, is an incident, not our chief concern. Our affair is the discharge of the duties wherewith our involuntary entrance into life has burdened us, and the fulfillment of that purpose to which each of us in his imagination is kindled; and so far as we are animated only by the competitive spirit of the game we miss the point of living. Our legitimate pleasure in overcoming need be none the less because it is subordinated to the pleasure of achieving or creating. ”

“ Why should he ever be afraid? and what is it but fear that withholds any of us from large achievement? His imagination does not implant in him doubt and distrust, his mediocre rank at school and his dullness at his books cause him no misgivings, for at his time of life excellence in these matters is esteemed parrotlike, and distinction in them is contemptuously awarded to the weak. It might be expected that the self-confidence acquired in early years through a mastery of all one's contemporaries could never quite forsake the most unlucky ”

“ It would not be fair to predicate of all such egotists an athletic and victorious boyhood, any more than to doom all athletes to so degenerate a fate. At the same time the descent of the hero it easy,—especially of the premature and precocious hero. Temptation besets him insidiously, for the egotism of the youth who by reason of his physical powers lords it over his fellows is by no means an unattractive quality and subject to rebuke. ”

“ The care with which he considers his diet, the attentiveness with which he grooms his body, the absorbed interest that he gives to all details of breathing and sleeping and exercising are, in comparison with his thoughtlessness about all that lies beyond, touching and ludicrous; the very simplicity of him in his engrossed self-study wins the smiling observer. And if he is a good-hearted boy or man, as one so healthy and so single-minded usually is, and is responsive to the admiration of others as well as of himself, he confers much happiness. ”

“ When Robert Louis Stevenson was asked what lack in life caused him the keenest pain, he answered, "The feeling that I'm not strong enough to resent an insult properly,—not strong enough to knock a man down." ”

“ Yet almost daily I pass on the street a giant of sixteen stone who can still put the shot and throw the hammer, who in figure and bearing seems designed for one of life's larger destinies, and who would gladly embrace success, however ignoble, instead of posing for a pittance as an artist's model. ”

“ The easy display of their prowess wins them such admiring regard that achievement seems superfluous and unprofitable; they attain to eminence by methods which do not tax their effort and which are as ephemeral as play. Meanwhile, their more feebly constituted contemporaries, seeking for distinction, have to occupy themselves with less spectacular action; the office, the library, and the laboratory claim increasingly the interest of those who are ambitious; and already purpose is shaping itself in their minds,—purpose of accomplishment and not mere purpose of competition ”

“ And there are many educated men who have the moral sense that he lacked, but who perhaps have no more definite object than he—no other aim than always to be powerful, as by reason of their strength in younger days they had been; and these men may go astray, not so deplorably as he, yet to an end of futility because of their eagerness always to match themselves against others, and their belief that competition vindicates itself and implies progress and productive achievement. ”

“ Yet building, however hopefully, for the future, they envy in their cloistered preparation the wanton vigor of the strong. They are learning to husband and concentrate their energy while their large-framed friends are living from day to day in a sort of opulent diffusion.
The tendency of the strong is not so much to work definitely towards some purpose as to keep constantly testing their strength in whatever competition offers; variety and excitement are what in their vitality they crave, and so long as they may be active they care little what monument they leave behind them. ”

“ Such an attempt to account for the clenching of the humble clerical pen in the fist, discouraged at forty, that had been redoubtable at fifteen, for the languid dullness of the eye that once had overawed a little world, for the sluggish gait and the shabby dress of him who in days past had stepped alert with the champion's zest in life, will perhaps be rejected by the philosopher as inadequate—at least as comprehended in a larger cause. ”

“ It is soaring into Utopian realms to assert that one should never have a sense of satisfaction in getting the better of another man; but it is no absurdly lofty or unpractical notion that he who finds in such achievement a sufficient end and cause for labor may strive to no purpose, even though his days are full of contest and victory. ”

“ And had these champions taken into any other pursuit the characteristics which have endeared them to the world,—the same childlike and blatant egotism, the same sterile spirit of competition,—how little human kindliness and popularity would they have enjoyed!
It gratifies some of us to be pessimistic about brawn. The theory pleases us that to be conspicuously strong in youth is to be exposed to a temptation which lesser boys are spared,—a temptation to go through life competing instead of achieving. ”

“ The generous spirit which warmed the heart of a true British boxer shone forth with its sterling brilliancy; all selfishness was set aside; and no sooner was the standard of charity unfurled than every man who could wield a fist, from the oldest veteran to the youngest practitioner, rushed forward, anxious and ardent to evince the feelings of his soul and to lend his hand in the work of benevolence. ”

“ Those who have come victorious through the competitions of youth will naturally be those most ardent to pursue life as a game, for in the conduct of a game they are accustomed to success. And in them egotism will most dangerously thrive. ”

“ The reader of such a panegyric may indulge a brief regret that they who in youth devote themselves with success to athletics ever turn their attention to other matters. Only by continuing in that simple and healthful occupation may they preserve untarnished the special charm which clings to heroes, the special egotism which is without offense. ”

“ There are indeed few traits more charming than the unsophisticated egotism of the athlete; and here there need be no reservations,—the professional athlete of mature years may be included as well as the callow amateur boy.
By comparison, the egotism of the artist or the poet, which is commonly accepted as the most monstrous, is but a shrinking modesty. The poet or the artist is quite objective in valuing himself; it is indeed him.self only as a creator that compels his admiration and reverence. But the subjection of the athlete to his own person is absolute ”

“ A classmate of mine at school excelled in strength nearly all his fellows. His strength indeed possessed him as it were a devil. He was as willing to exhibit it by hectoring the weak as by tussling with those who could put up a defense. It is fallacious to assert that the bully is always a coward. This boy was in many respects an egregious bully, but he was without fear. ”

“ Weaker than his fellows and high-spirited, he came to be reckless of such strength as he had; with bravado and imagination he recompensed himself for the niggardliness of nature. The weak who are poor-spirited and without bravado do not disguise that they are timorous or furtive, subservient or cringing; and weakness does very often impose poverty of spirit. ”

“ Young men and boys of great bodily strength are usually more intent on exercising their power than on accomplishing a purpose. In the habit of mind and action so engendered lies the great impediment which in after life may balk them of the fruits promised by their early victorious self-confidence. ”

“ The competitive instinct is the strongest of all the instincts of a healthy boy. He wishes to test himself in relation to the other boys of his acquaintance; he must be forever pitting his strength and daring and endurance against theirs. This keenness to strive and to excel is the starting point for all useful masculine development; but it is a stage in development that must be outgrown. If it continues the ruling passion after manhood, it is to the man's detriment. ”

“ His school days were miserable to him, and miserable school days are likely to affect permanently a man's outlook. Perhaps not any one bullying episode of which he may have been an impotent victim, not any one instance where he stood solitary to one side, while the school acclaimed their champion, remained to give a special vengefulness to that longing of his mature years: "If I were only strong enough to knock a man down!" ”

“ It will be egotism of the sort that urges a man to compete with others in excesses, to earn a reputation for his ability to outstay his comrades in a carousal, and be fit and ready for work at the usual hour the next morning. ”

“ Only part of the truth may be furnished by the most obvious reply,—that a man whose principal regard has been to maintain physical supremacy over his fellows finds himself less well equipped for the struggle as it becomes less and less manual. ”

“ At the risk of seeming to hold a narrowly ascetic doctrine, would assail that common phrase, "the game of life." In its suggestion of emulation, lighthearted or grim according as one's game is tennis or football, it is misleading. ”

“ As an illustration of the pleasing and ample egotism of the athlete, I would quote from a newspaper account of a friendly visit once paid by a famous pugilist to the most famous of all pugilists in our generation. ”

“ For when the boy grows into the man, it is time that he should have erected in his mind his own standard and that henceforth he should measure himself in comparison with that alone, and not with the stature of other men. One need never outgrow the sense of satisfaction in getting the better of a difficulty ”

“ For a few brilliant exploits there is much waste and much triviality; they cast about continually to prevail over some new person or some new obstacle without regard for the intrinsic value of the struggle. Consistency and conviction are virtues on which they seldom make a stand ”

“ I think when a guy croaks he just dies and that's all there is to him. They bury some of them, but they won't plant me. When I go,' the big fellow faltered, 'they'll burn me. Nothin' left but your ashes, and each of your friends can have some of you to remember you by. ”

“ Accustomed to a rudimentary enforcement of his boyish personality, he often has no great readiness in adapting himself to the subtler methods employed by the aging world. The weaker and more studious among his contemporaries are able now to match craft and knowledge against his ignorance,—and he can no longer retaliate by a triumphant demonstration of his superior weight. ”

“ Nowadays lack of preparation does not sufficiently explain failure; the most ill-equipped business man or professional man, if he has a genial assertiveness and a willingness to represent shoddy wares and spurious talents as genuine, need not despair of attaining a meretricious success. Self-confidence is older brother to an easy conscience and a tendency to "bluff;" ”

“ Sam Parks, the labor leader and felon, is not yet forgotten. He came to America at the age of twenty, an illiterate Irishman, strong, domineering, and prone to use his fists. In the lumber camps of Canada and Minnesota he made a reputation as a "slugger." When he took up the trade of an iron worker, his methods of asserting himself continued as drastic as in the lumber camps. "He cleaned out champion after champion," says a newspaper biography of him. "He was a natural born tyrant. A man who would n't bend to his will got slugged." ”

“ With civilization at a point where the resort to elemental weapons is practically obsolete, it might seem that there was something antiquated and unreal, more imaginary than genuine, in this complaint of the frail-bodied Stevenson ”