The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals - Brett McKay [78]
When I was a youngster in petticoats locks had a fascination for me. As I grew up I worked with various locksmiths. The study of locks led to the study of all sorts of locking appliances. In this connection I took up physics, even dipped into chemistry a bit. You know five hours is a full night’s sleep for me. I can do with less. It’s remarkable what a lot of work a fellow can get done during those three extra hours while the rest of the world is in bed. It’s nearly eleven hundred extra hours a year. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I am the Great Houdini instead of a side-show piker.
Do But One Thing at Once
A LETTER FROM LORD CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON, 1747
Lord Chesterfield was a British statesman who penned a series of letters to his son Philip, imparting his advice on topics ranging from political strategy to etiquette. While his son never became the success his father so desperately hoped these letters would help him become, we can benefit from the sage and sometimes witty advice of Lord Chesterfield on how to conduct oneself as a man of the world.
London, April the 14th, O. S. 1747.
DEAR BOY,
You may remember, that I have always earnestly recommended to you, to do what you are about, be that what it will; and to do nothing else at the same time. Do not imagine that I mean by this, that you should attend to, and plod at, your book all day long; far from it: I mean that you should have your pleasures too; and that you should attend to them, for the time, as much as to your studies; and if you do not attend equally to both, you will neither have improvement nor satisfaction from either. A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure who either cannot, or does not, command and direct his attention to the present object, and in some degree banish, for that time, all other objects from his thoughts. If at a ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. The Pensionary de Witt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did the whole business of the Republic, and yet had time left to go to assemblies in the evening, and sup in company. Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did; he answered, there was nothing so easy; for that it was only doing one thing at a time, and never putting off anything till tomorrow that could be done today. This steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind. When you read Horace, attend to the justness of his thoughts, the happiness of his diction, and the beauty of his poetry; and do not think of Puffendorf de Homine et Cive: and when you are reading Puffendorf, do not think of Madame de St. Germain; nor of Puffendorf, when you are talking to Madame de St. Germain.
“If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, ‘I awake to do the work of a man.’” —Marcus Aurelius
You Must Be One Man
FROM THE ENCHIRIDION
By Epictetus
Epictetus (55–135 A.D.) was a Greek Stoic philosopher who argued that unhappiness was created by fighting against those events and forces that were not in our power to control. That which was within our power to control—our own actions—had to be regulated through discipline and towards virtue in order to attain eudemonia.
In every act observe the things which come first, and those which follow it; and so proceed to the act. If you do not, at first you will approach it with alacrity, without having thought of the things