A Young Man's Chances To-Day
Essay.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1896)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 11.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/a-young-mans-chances-today/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• Col. Robert G. Ingersoll represents what is intellectually
    highest among the whole world's opponents of religion. He
    counts theology as the science of a superstition. He decries
    religion as it exists, and holds that the broadest thing a
    man, or all human nature, can do is to acknowledge ignorance
    when it cannot know. He accepts nothing on faith. He is the
    American who is forever asking, "Why?"—who demands a reason
    and material proof before believing.
    As Christianity's corner-stone is faith, he rejects
    Christianity, and argues that all men who are broad enough
    to know when to narrow their ideas down to fact or
    demonstrable theory must reject it. Believe as he does or
    not, all Americans must be interested in him. His mind is
    marvelous, his tongue is silvern, his logic is invincible—
    as logic.
    Col. Ingersoll is a shining example of the oft-quoted fact
    that, given mental ability, health and industry, a young man
    may make for himself whatever place in life he desires and
    is fitted to fill. His early advantages were limited, for
    his father, a Congregational minister whose field of labor
    often changed, was a man of far too small an income to send
    his sons to college. Whatever of mental training the young
    man had he was obliged to get by reason of his own exertion,
    and his splendid triumphs as an orator, and his solid
    achievements as a lawyer are all the result of his own
    efforts. The only help he had was that which is the common
    heritage of all American young men—the chance to fight even
    handed for success. It is not surprising, therefore, that
    Col. Ingersoll feels a deep interest in every bright young
    man of his acquaintance who is struggling manfully for the
    glittering prize so brilliantly won by the great Agnostic
    himself. He does not believe, however, that the young man
    who goes out mto the world nowadays to seek his fortune has
    so easy a battle to fight as had the young men of thirty
    years ago. In conversation with the writer Col. Ingersoll
    spoke earnestly upon this subject.
    Col. Ingersoll's views regarding the Bible and Christianity
    were not generally understood by the public for some time
    after he had become famous as an orator, although he  began
    to diverge from orthodoxy when quite young, and was as
    pronounced an Agnostic when he went into the army, as he is
    now.
    Col. Ingersoll is an inch less than six feet tall, and
    weighs ten more than two hundred pounds. He will be sixty-
    one next August, and his hair is snowy. His shoulders are
    broad and as straight as they were eighteen years ago when
    he electrified a people and place! his own name upon the
    list of a nation's greatest orators with his matchless
    "Plumed Knight" speech in nominating
    James G. Blaine for the presidency. His blue eyes look
    straight into yours when he speaks to you, and his sentences
    are punctuated by engaging little tricks of facial
    expression—now the brow is criss-crossed with the lines of
    a frown, sometimes quizzical and sometimes indignant—next,
    the smooth-shaven lips break into a curving smile, which may
    grow into a broad grin if the point just made were a
    humorous one, and this is quite likely to be followed by a
    look of sueh intense earnestness that you wonder if he will
    ever smile again. And all the time his eyes flash,
    illuminating, sometimes anticipatory, glances that add
    immensely to the clearness with which the thought he is
    expressing is set before you. He delights to tell a story,
    and he never tells any but good ones, but—and in this he is
    like Lincoln—he is apt to use his stories to drive some
    proposition home. This is almost invariably true, even when
    he sets out to spin a yarn for the story's simple sake. His
    mentality seems to be duplex, quadruplex, multiplex, if you
    please—and while his lips and tongue are effectively
    delivering the story, his wonderful brain is, seemingly,
    unconsciously applying the point of the story to the proving
    of a pet theory, and when the tale has been told the verbal
    application follows.
    His birthplace was Dresden, N. Y. His early boyhood was
    passed in New York State and his youth and young manhood in
    Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin.
    His handgrasp is hearty and his manner and words are the
    very essence of straightforward directness. I called at his
    office once when the Colonel was closeted with a person who
    wished to retain him in a law case involving a good deal of
    money. After a bit I was told that I could see him, and as I
    entered he was saying: "The case can't be won, for you are
    in the wrong. I don't want it."
    "But," pleaded the would-be client, "It seems to me that a
    good deal can be done in such a case by the way it is
    handled before the jury, and I thought if you were to be the
    man I might get a verdict."
    "No, sir," was the reply, and the words fell like the lead
    of a plumb line; "I won't take it. Good morning, sir."
    It has been sometimes said, indulgently, of Col. Ingersoll
    that he is indolent, but no one can hold that view who is at
    all familiar with him or his work. As a matter of fact, his
    industry is phenomenal, though, indeed, it is not carried on
    after the fashion of less brainy men. When he has an
    important case ahead of him his devotion to the mastery of
    its details absorbs him at once and completely. It sometimes
    becomes necessary for him to take up a line of chemical
    inquiry entirely new to him; again, to elaborate
    genealogical researches are necessary; still again, it may
    be essential for him to thoroughly inform himself concerning
    hitherto uninvestigated local historical records. But
    whatever is needful to be studied he studies, and so
    thoroughly that his mind becomes saturated with the
    knowledge required. And once acquired no sort of information
    ever leaves him, for he has a memory quite as marvelous as
    any other of his altogether marvelous characteristics.
    It is the same when he has an address to prepare. Every
    authority that can be consulted upon the subject to be
    treated in the address, is consulted, and often the material
    that suggests some of the most telling points is one which
    no one but Ingersoll himself would think of referring to.
    Here again his wonderful memory stands him in good stead for
    he has packed away within the convolutions of his brain a
    lot of facts that bear upon almost every conceivable branch
    of human thought or investigation.
    His memory is quite as retentive of the features of a man he
    has seen as of other matters; it retains voices also, as a
    war time friend of his discovered last summer. It was a busy
    day with the Colonel, who had given instructions to his
    office boy that under no circumstances was he to be
    disturbed; so when his old friend called he was told that
    Col. Ingersoll could not see him "But," said the visitor: "I
    must see him. I haven't seen him for twenty years; I am
    going out of town this afternoon, and I wouldn't miss
    talking with him for a few minutes for a good deal of
    money."
    "Well," said the boy, "he wasn't to be disturbed by
    anybody."
    At this moment the door of the Colonel's private office
    opened, and the Colonel's portly form appeared upon the
    scene.
    "Why, Maj. Blank," he said, "come in. I did tell the boy I
    wouldn't see anybody, but you are more important than the
    biggest law case in the world."
    The Colonel's memory had retained the sound of the major's
    voice, and because of that, the latter was not obliged to
    leave New York without seeing and renewing his old
    acquaintance.
    Col. Ingersoll's retorts are as quick as a flash-light and
    as searching. One of them was so startling and so effective
    as to give a certain famous long drawn out railroad suit the
    nickname. "The Ananias and Sapphira ease." Ingersoll was
    speaking and had made certain statements highly damaging to
    the other side, in such a way as to thoroughly anger a
    member of the opposing counsel, who suddenly interrupted the
    speaker with the abrupt and sarcastic remark:
    "I suppose the Colonel, in the nature of things, never heard
    of the story of Ananias ana Sapphira."
    There were those present who expected to witness an angry
    outburst on the part of Ingersoll in response to this plain
    implication that his statement had not the quality of
    veracity, but they were disappointed. Ingersoll didn't even
    get angry. He turned slightly, fixed his limpid blue eyes
    upon the speaker, and looked cherubically. Then he gently
    drawled out.
    "Oh, yes, I have, yes, I have. And I've watched the
    gentleman who has just spoken all through this case with a
    curious Interest. I've been expecting every once in a while
    to see him drop dead, but he seems to be all right down to
    the present moment."
    Ingersoll never gets angry when he is interrupted, even if
    it is in the middle of an address or a lecture. A man
    interrupted him in Cincinnati once, cutting right into one
    of the lecturer's most resonant periods with a yell:
    "That's a lie. Bob lngersoll, and you know it."
    The audience was in an uproar in an instant, and cries of
    "Put him out!" "Throw him down stairs!" and the like were
    heard from all parts of the house. Ingersoll stopped talking
    for a moment, and held up his hands, smiling.
    "Don't hurt the man," he said. "He thinks he is right. But
    let me explain this thing for his especial benefit."
    Then he reasoned the matter out in language so simple and
    plain that no one of any intelligence whatever could fail to
    comprehend. The man was not ejected, but sat through the
    entire address, and at the close asked the privilege of
    begging the lecturer's pardon.
    Like most men of genius, Colonel lngersoll is a passionate
    lover of music, and the harmonies of Wagner seem to him to
    be the very acme of musical expression....
    Notwithstanding his thoroughly heretical beliefs or lack of
    beliefs, or, as he would say, because of them, Colonel
    lngersoll is a very tender-hearted man. No one has ever made
    so strong an argument against vivisection in the alleged
    interests of science as lngersoll did in a speech a few
    years ago. To the presentation of his views against the
    refinements of scientific cruelty he brought his most vivid
    imagination, his most careful thought and his most
    impassioned oratory.
    Colonel Ingersoll's popularity with those who know him is
    proverbial. The clerks in his offices not only admire him
    for his ability and his achievements, but they esteem him
    for his kindliness of heart and his invariable courtesy in
    his intercourse with them. His offices are located in one of
    the buildings devoted to corporations and professional men
    on the lower part of Nassau street and consist of three
    rooms. The one used by the head of the firm is farthest from
    the entrance. All are furnished in solid black walnut. In
    the Colonel's room there is a picture of his loved brother
    Ebon, and hanging below the frame thereof is the tin sign
    that the two brothers hung out for a shingle when they went
    into the law business in Peoria. There are also pictures of
    a judge or two. The desks in all the rooms are littered with
    papers. Books are piled to the ceiling. Everywhere there is
    an air of personal freedom. There is no servility either to
    clients or the head of the business, but there is everywhere
    an informal courtesy somewhat akin to that which is born of
    a fueling of great comradeship.
    Of the Colonel's ideal home life the world has often been
    told. He lives during the winter at his town house in Fifth
    Avenue; in the summer at Dobbs Ferry, a charming place a few
    miles up the Hudson from New York.—Boston Herald, July,
    1894.

A FEW years ago there were many thousand miles of railroads to be built,
a great many towns and cities to be located, constructed and filled;
vast areas of uncultivated land were waiting for the plow, vast forests
the axe, and thousands of mines were longing to be opened. In those days
every young man of energy and industry had a future. The professions
were not overcrowded; there were more patients than doctors, more
litigants than lawyers, more buyers of goods than merchants. The young
man of that time who was raised on a farm got a little education, taught
school, read law or medicine—some of the weaker ones read theology—and
there seemed to be plenty of room, plenty of avenues to success and
distinction.

So, too, a few years ago a political life was considered honorable,
and so in politics there were many great careers. So, hundreds of towns
wanted newspapers, and in each of those towns there was an opening for
some energetic young man. At that time the plant cost but little; a few
dollars purchased the press—the young publisher could get the paper
stock on credit.

Now the railroads have all been built; the canals are finished; the
cities have been located; the outside property has been cut into lots,
and sold and mortgaged many times over. Now it requires great capital
to go into business. The individual is counting for less and less; the
corporation, the trust, for more and more. Now a great merchant employs
hundreds of clerks; a few years ago most of those now clerks would have
been merchants. And so it seems to be in nearly every department of
life. Of course, I do not know what inventions may leap from the brains
of the future; there may be millions and millions of fortunes yet to be
made in that direction, but of that I am not speaking.

So, I think that a few years ago the chances were far more numerous and
favorable to young men who wished to make a name for themselves, and to
succeed in some department of human energy than now.

In savage life a living is very easy to get. Most any savage can hunt
or fish; consequently there are few failures. But in civilized life
competition becomes stronger and sharper; consequently, the percentage
of failures increases, and this seems to be the law. The individual is
constantly counting for less. It may be that, on the average, people
live better than they did formerly, that they have more to eat, drink
and wear; but the individual horizon has lessened; it is not so wide and
cloudless as formerly. So I say that the chances for great fortunes, for
great success, are growing less and less.

I think a young man should do that which is easiest for him to do,
provided there is an opportunity; if there is none, then he should
take the next. The first object of every young man should be to be
self-supporting, no matter in what direction—be independent. He should
avoid being a clerk and he should avoid giving his future into the hands
of any one person. He should endeavor to get a business in which the
community will be his patron, and whether he is to be a lawyer, a doctor
or a day-laborer depends on how much he has mixed mind with muscle.

If a young man imagines that he has an aptitude for public
speaking—that is, if he has a great desire to make his ideas known to
the world—the probability is that the desire will choose the way, time
and place for him to make the effort.

If he really has something to say, there will be plenty to listen. If he
is so carried away with his subject, is so in earnest that he becomes an
instrumentality of his thought—so that he is forgotten by himself; so
that he cares neither for applause nor censure—simply caring to present
his thoughts in the highest and best and most comprehensive way, the
probability is that he will be an orator.

I think oratory is something that cannot be taught. Undoubtedly a man
can learn to be a fair talker. He can by practice learn to present his
ideas consecutively, clearly and in what you may call "form," but there
is as much difference between this and an oration as there is between a
skeleton and a living human being clad in sensitive, throbbing flesh.

There are millions of skeleton makers, millions of people who can
express what may be called "the bones" of a discourse, but not one in a
million who can clothe these bones.

You can no more teach a man to be an orator than you can teach him to be
an artist or a poet of the first class. When you teach him, there is the
same difference between the man who is taught, and the man who is what
he is by virtue of a natural aptitude, that there is between a pump
and a spring—between a canal and a river—between April rain and
water-works. It is a question of capacity and feeling—not of education.
There are some things that you can tell an orator not to do. For
instance, he should never drink water while talking, because the
interest is broken, and for the moment he loses control of his audience.
He should never look at his watch for the same reason. He should never
talk about himself. He should never deal in personalities. He should
never tell long stories, and if he tells any story he should never say
that it is a true story, and that he knew the parties. This makes it a
question of veracity instead of a question of art. He should never clog
his discourse with details. He should never dwell upon particulars—he
should touch universals, because the great truths are for all time.

If he wants to know something, if he wishes to feel something, let him
read Shakespeare. Let him listen to the music of Wagner, of Beethoven,
or Schubert. If he wishes to express himself in the highest and most
perfect form, let him become familiar with the great paintings of the
world—with the great statues—all these will lend grace, will give
movement and passion and rhythm to his words. A great orator puts into
his speech the perfume, the feelings, the intensity of all the great and
beautiful and marvelous things that he has seen and heard and felt. An
orator must be a poet, a metaphysician, a logician—and above all, must
have sympathy with all.
