Thomas Cooper

“ Such was the truly magnificent advancement made by this illustrious disciple of “Perseverance,” up to the age of twenty-one. Think, reader, how much may be done in the opening of life! How elevated the course of Sir William Jones! What cheering self-approval must he have experienced, in looking back on the youthful years thus industriously spent; but what humbling reflection, what severe self-laceration would he have felt, had he allowed indolence to master him, ease to enervate him, listlessness and dissipation to render him a nameless and worthless nothing in the world! ”

“ Perseverance—Perseverance—has guided and sinewed men’s love of the beautiful and powerful in melody and harmony, until, from the simple utterance of a few notes of feeling, rudely conveyed from sire to son by renewed utterance, Music has grown up into a science, dignified and adorned by profound theorists, like Albrechtsberger, and by sublime creative geniuses, such as the majestic Handel and sweetest Haydn and universal Mozart and sublime Beethoven. ”

“ His great work is, emphatically, for strictness of statement, combined with such comprehensiveness of subjects, for depth and clearness of disquisition, and for splendour of style, one of the most magnificent “Triumphs of Perseverance.”
And is the roll of these triumphs complete? Have the labours of the past pretermitted the possibility of equal victories in the future? Never, while the human mind exists, can the catalogue of its successes be deemed to have found a limit or an end. ”

“ The freedom from fear—nay, the cheerfulness and exultation he experiences when surrounded by the waste of waters, far away from the enjoyments of house and home; the unsubduable resolution with which he careers over the wave and encounters every vicissitude of season and climate; the strength and vastness of the element itself which is the chief scene of his daring enterprise: these are considerations that ever interweave themselves with our ideal of the sea-adventurer, and render him the object of more profound and ardent admiration than the mere traveller by land. ”

“ As it is in the elaboration of Literature’s most perfect products so it is in Art: into the mind his images must be taken; there they must be wrought up into new combinations and shapes of beauty or of power; and from this grand repository the statuary or painter, like the poet, must summon his forms anew, evermore returning, dutifully, to compare them with Nature and actual life, and sparing no effort to clothe them with the attribute of veri-similitude.
Need it be argued, then, that without perseverance the world would have beheld none of the wonders of high Art? ”

“ MUSICIANS. HANDEL. The time may come when Music will be universally recognised as the highest branch of Art; as the most powerful divulger of the intellect’s profoundest conceptions and noblest aspirations; as the truest interpreter of the heart’s loves and hates, joys and woes; as the purest, least sensual, disperser of mortal care and sorrow; as the all-glorious tongue in which refined, good, and happy beings can most perfectly utter their thoughts and emotions. Perhaps this cannot be till the realm of the physical world be more fully subdued by man. ”

“ Neither let the young and gifted, in whom the kindlings of creative genius are felt, listen to the dull voices who say, “The last epic has been written—no more great dramas shall be produced—the lyrics of the past will never be equalled!” If such vaticinations were true, it would show that the human mind was dwarfed. Shakspere did not believe that, or he would not have excelled Sophocles. None but intellectual cravens will affright themselves with the belief that they cannot equal the doings of those who have gone before. ”

“ I feel confident that most of the miseries of human life are brought about by want of a solid education—of firm reliance on a bountiful and ever-attendant Providence—of a spirit of perseverance—of patience under fatigue and privations, and a resolute determination to hold to the point of duty, never to shrink while life retains a spark, or while ‘a shot is in the locker,’ as sailors say. ”

“ In every mind swayed by reflection, and not by impulse or prejudice, the world’s admiration for warriors is regarded as mistaken, because the deeds of the soldier are the infliction of suffering and destruction, spring from the most evil passions, and serve but to keep up the real hindrances of civilization and human happiness. Statues and columns erected in honour of conquerors, excellent as they may be for the display of art, serve, therefore, in every correct mind, for subjects of regretful rather than encouraging and satisfactory contemplation. ”

“ If a rude image of the South Sea islanders be compared with one of Chantrey’s sculptures, or a Chinese picture with some perfect performance of Raffaelle or Claude, what a world of reflection unfolds itself on the countless steps taken by the mind, from its first attempt at imitating the human form, or depicturing a landscape, to the periods of its most successful effort in statuary or painting. The first childish essay of a great artist, compared with one of the masterpieces of his maturity, calls up kindred thoughts. ”

“ Such honours served to mark the estimation in which he was held by those who had it in their power to confer them; but Davy’s enduring distinctions, like those of the unequalled Newton, are derived from the increase of power over nature, which he has secured for millions yet unborn, by the force of his genius, girt up, tirelessly by Perseverance, till its grand triumphs were won. ”

“ It is sought to impress deeply and enduringly on the youthful understanding, the irrefragable truth that, while genius is a gift which none can create for himself, and may be uselessly possessed, perseverance has enabled many, who were born with only ordinary faculties of imagination, judgment, and memory, to attain a first-rate position in literature or science, or in the direction of human affairs, and to leave a perpetual name in the list of the world’s benefactors. ”

“ Has the youthful reader formed a purpose for life? We ask not whether he has conceived a vulgar passion [Pg 3] for fame or riches, but earnestly exhort him to self-enquiry, whether he be wasting existence in what is termed amusement, or be daily devoting the moments at his command to a diligent preparation for usefulness? Whether he has hitherto viewed life as a journey to be trod without aims and ends, or a grand field of enterprise in which it is both his duty and interest to become an industrious and honourable worker? ”

“ The modesty of this great man was, indeed, the most distinguishing mark of his intellect. Arrogant satisfaction, or pride [Pg 101] of superior genius, never sullied his greatness. Even in giving this scientific treasure to the world, he says, he designed to repeat most of his observations with more care and exactness, and to make some new ones for determining the manner how the rays of light are bent in their passage by bodies, for making the fringes of colours with the dark lines between them.
How much are we indebted to the patient perseverance of all the true discoverers in science! ”

“ How tremendous must be the sense of danger to the tenants of a frail ship amidst such gigantic forces of nature, the most inexperienced reader can form some conception. But, overwhelming as the feeling of awe must be with the sailor surrounded with such terrors, it must be infinitely more tolerable than the prolonged and indescribably irksome heart-ache he experiences when inclosed for months in fixed ice, encompassed on every hand with desolation. ”

“ The moral as well as the intellectual grandeur of the life of Newton would tempt us to enlarge, but we must merely say, ere we pass on, to the youthful inquirer—read about Newton, think about Newton, and the more [Pg 104] you know of him the more will your understanding honour him, your heart love him, and your desire strengthen to approach him in virtue, wisdom, and usefulness.
SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL, Newton’s greatest successor in astronomical discovery, may claim an equality with him, as a true and noble disciple of perseverance. ”

“ MEN OF BUSINESS. Examples of a successful pursuit of wealth, either from the beginnings of a moderate fortune, or from absolute penury, are abundant. A life devoted to the acquirement of money, for its own sake, cannot be made the subject of moral eulogy; it can only be introduced among the “Triumphs of Perseverance,” as a proof of the efficacy of that quality of the mind to enable the wealth-winner to compass his resolves. It by no means follows, however, that a career towards opulence is impelled by the mere sordid passion for gain. ”

“ Let the young reader bid success to such enterprises, and enter into their spirit with all his energy. To be engaged—to be busy—to be earnestly at work, he will find to be one of the chief sources of happiness; and to pass life honourably and worthily, it is not only the duty, but the privilege, of well-nigh every native of our own and other civilised countries, to render existence a series of the “Triumphs of Enterprise.” ”

“ SHAKSPEARE, The most highly endowed of human intelligences, was under as great necessity of learning the vocabulary of the English tongue as the very commonest mind. He, like all other men, however inferior to him in understanding or imagination, was born without any innate knowledge of things, or their natures, words, or the rules for fashioning them in order, or combining them with grace and harmony, eloquence and strength. ”

“ Art and literature could never have sprung into existence if men had remained mere strugglers for life, in their inability to contend with the elements of nature, because ignorant of its laws; and an acquaintance with the languages of tribes merely barbarous would have been but a worthless kind of knowledge. To scientific discoverers—the pioneers of civilization, who make the world worth living in, and render man’s tenancy of it more valuable by every successive step of discovery—our primary tribute of admiration and gratitude seems due. ”

“ From this hasty survey of the magnificent course of one of the great penetrators into the secrets of nature, and preservers of human life, let us cast a glance on the struggles of one who has been the means of multiplying man’s hands and fingers—to use a strong figure—of opening up sources of employment for millions, and of showing the road to wealth for thousands. ”

“ PHILANTHROPISTS. One conviction forms the basis of all correct admiration for the heroism and intrepidity of scientific discoverers, the marvellous inventions of mechanicians; the sublime enthusiasm of poets, artists, and musicians; the laborious devotion of scholars; and even of the intelligent industry of the accumulators of wealth: it is that all their efforts and achievements tend, by the law of our nature, to the amelioration of man’s condition. ”

“ To this we reconcile ourselves with difficulty on the ocean and amid the sands of Africa, though in these scenes, where nothing recals to mind our fields, our woods, and our streams, we are less astonished at the vast solitude through which we pass. Here, in a fertile country, adorned with eternal verdure, we seek in vain the traces of the power of man; we seem to be transported into a world different from that which gave us birth. ”

“ Immense fields of history remain yet untrodden and uncultivated; innumerable facts throughout the ages which are gone remain to be collected by industry and arranged by judgment; the ever-varying phases of human affairs [Pg 44] offer perpetual material for new chronicle: let none who meditates to devote his youth to historical inquiry, with the meritorious resolve to distinguish his manhood by some useful monument of solid thought, imagine that his ground has been narrowed, but rather understand that it has been cleared and enlarged by the noble workmen who have gone before. ”

“ SALVATOR ROSA, One of those high names which are everlasting monuments of the success with which true genius bids defiance to the hostilities of poverty and envy might be claimed, with pride and fondness, by either of the sister arts of Poetry and Music, were it not that his greatest triumphs were won in Painting. ”

“ This was not recklessness in Johnson, though it would have been folly in one whose mind was not most opulently stored with matured thought, and who had not attained such a habit of modulating sentences, as to render it almost mechanical. Such attainments can only be reached by the most determined disciple of perseverance. “A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it,” was Johnson’s own saying; but he could not have verified it, unless his mind, by assiduous application, had been filled with the materials of writing. ”

“ Russia, proud of her Czar, the celebrated Peter the Great, wished to erect a monument to his memory. Catherine the Second was the monarch who had the direction of the work, and her choice for an artist fell upon M. Falconet, who, in his conception of an equestrian statue, resolved that the subordinate parts should bear an equal impress of genius. “The pedestals in general use,” he observed, “had no distinctive feature, and adapt themselves equally well to any subject. Being of so universal application they suggest no new or elevated thoughts to the beholder.” ”