In the same vein Emerson writes:

We like only such actions as have already long had the praise of men, and do not perceive that anything man can do may be divinely done. We think greatness entailed or organized in some places or duties, in certain offices and occasions, and do not see that Paganini can extract rapture from a catgut, and Eulenstein from a jews-harp, and a nimble-fingered lad out of shreds of paper with his scissors, and Landseer out of swine, and a hero out of the pitiful habitation and company in which he was hidden. What we call obscure condition or vulgar society is that condition and society whose poetry is not yet written, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any. Accept your genius and say what you think. To make habitually a new estithat is elevation.

mate

Each has own post. - Certainly no work is of itself undignified if it is socially necessary. Society would suffer just as truly without one bit of it as without another. Each man has his own post to guard, or his part of the line to advance, and a break in the lines at one point may be just as fatal as at another.

The mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel,

And the former called the latter "Little Prig";

Bun replied

"You are doubtless very big;

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together

To make up a year

And a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace

To occupy my place.

If I'm not so big as you,

You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel track.

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I can not carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."

Loyal man called by need. In fact the loyal man will not choose his work on the basis of its attractiveness. He will be called rather by its necessity, and the very fact that others shun it and tend to leave it unperformed will make it so much the more attractive to him. There is no challenge from what every man is willing to do. It calls for no heroism to undertake that. One can not make his life uniquely significant by doing a job that others could and would duplicate. His challenge is rather from that job that, apart from him, would be left undone, and that would thus leave a gap in God's world. This may, indeed, be a job too big for any one else to handle, but it is more likely to be one which others spurn one where a man must work unknown and unappreciated one where one must live and die a dog's life but where yet the service rendered is indispensable. But the loyal man will stand in this but-for-him forsaken gap, and perform the work with a quiet, uncomplaining dignity, conscious that no task is small that is blessed of God.

Suppose the little cowslip

Should hang its golden cup,
And say, "I'm such a tiny flower,
I'd better not grow up";
How many a weary traveler

Would miss its fragrant smell!
How many a little child would grieve
To lose it from the dell !

Suppose the glistening dewdrop
Upon the grass should say,
"What can a little dewdrop do?
I'd better roll away";

The blade on which it rested,

Before the day was done,
Without a drop to moisten it,

Would wither in the sun.

Suppose the little breezes,

Upon a summer's day,

Should think themselves too slight to cool
The traveler on his way;

Who would not miss the smallest

And softest ones that blow,

And think they made a great mistake

If they were acting so?

Like rills from the mountain together that run,
And make the broad river below;

So each little life, and the work of each one

To one common current shall flow;

And down on its bosom, like ships on the tide,

The hopes of mankind shall move on;

Nor in vain have we lived, nor in vain have we died,

If we live in the work we have done.

EXERCISES

1. Does loyalty require a boy to support his chum when in conflict with his school or his state? Is loyalty given to individuals or to more general causes? Why?

2. Is it true that the loyal man wins a kind of victory even in defeat? Would you exchange objective success for the joy of serving in a just but losing cause? In what sense was the death of Jesus and of Socrates a stimulus to the work for which they stood?

3. Show how one can be a more virile member of a school, or of a state, by working with the authorities rather than against them. How does student government apply to this?

4. Think over some laws or social customs, and consider whether you would have them different. Is it true that they can be accepted as expressions of your own rational will?

5. Was the attitude of Socrates right?

6. Is it true that the really loyal group needs no rules? Illustrate.

7. When a new cinder walk is laid, people walk alongside of it rather than on it. Yet, if it is to be speedily made usable, it must be walked on. What will the loyal man do? Why?

8. Is it true that a man gains more than he loses by "attach

ing himself to a whole"? Test this out by considering the requirements for success in politics, social reform, industry, science, etc.

9. Can you point to a kind of work that is socially useful, yet, in itself, menial? Could the loyal man get for it a new estimate? Find examples.

10. How will the loyal man choose his task? Illustrate.

CHAPTER XXVI

CHOOSING A VOCATION

Individual differences and specialization in work. The modern industrial world, in which one must take his place as worker, is amazingly complex. No one man can any longer cover its whole range. He must be a specialist. He must fit himself into some particular little niche in the general industrial machine. Now if people were all alike, a vocation could properly be entered merely at haphazard, for every one could equally succeed in any post, but this condition is by no means a fact. Both psychological experiment and common observation prove that individuals do differ and differ profoundly in their qualities. None of them are good all around, and probably none of them are bad in every respect, but each has his own peculiar strength. According to Emerson, "The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broad swords, or canals, or statues, or songs."

Artemus Ward says:

Every one has got a fort. It's some men's fort to do one thing, and some other men's fort to do another, while ther are numeris shiftless critters goin' round loose whose fort is not to do nothin'.

Sez he, "Wade in ole

Twice I've endevered to do things which they wasn't my fort. The first time was when I undertook to lick a owdashus cuss who cut a hole in my tent and krawled threw. Sez I, "My gentle sir, go out or I shall fall onto you putty hevy." Wax Figgers," whereupon I went for him, but he cawt me powerful on the hed and knocht me threw the tent into a cow pastur. He pursood the attack and flung me into a mud puddle. As I arose