Title: 21
Author: Crane, Frank, 1861-1928
Language: English
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21



[Illustration: DR. FRANK CRANE]

_"We may all possess wisdom if we are willing to be persuaded that
the experience of others is as useful as our own. Why give to old
age alone the privilege of wisdom? What would be thought of one who
prided himself on possessing bracelets when he had lost his two arms
in war?"_

                             --_Yoritomo, the Japanese Philosopher._



21

BY

DR. FRANK CRANE

Being the article "If I Were Twenty-One" which originally appeared
in the _American Magazine_.

Revised by the author


NEW YORK
WM. H. WISE & CO.
1930



_Copyright, 1918, by_

WM. H. WISE & CO.

_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian._

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE
CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY



CONTENTS

CHAPTER

        A Foreword
        Prelude
     I. If I were Twenty-One I would do the next thing
    II. If I were Twenty-One I would adjust myself
   III. If I were Twenty-One I would take care of my body
    IV. If I were Twenty-One I would train my mind
     V. If I were Twenty-One I would be happy
    VI. If I were Twenty-One I would get married
   VII. If I were Twenty-One I would save money
  VIII. If I were Twenty-One I would study the art of pleasing
    IX. If I were Twenty-One I would determine, even if I could
        never be anything else in the world, that I would be
        a thoroughbred
     X. If I were Twenty-One I would make some permanent, amicable
        arrangement with my conscience



A FOREWORD

_The following note, by the editor of the _American Magazine_,
appeared in conjunction with the publication of this story in that
magazine:_


In most of the biggest cities of the United States, from New York
and Chicago down, you will find people who, every night of their
lives, watch for and read in their evening paper an editorial by
Frank Crane. These editorials are syndicated in a chain of
thirty-eight newspapers, which reach many millions of readers. The
grip which Crane has on these readers is tremendous. The reason is
that the man has plenty of sensible ideas, which he presents simply
and forcibly so that people get hold of them.

In reality, Crane is a wonderful preacher. Years ago, in fact, he
was the pastor of a great church in Chicago. But he left the pulpit
and took up writing because he had the ability to interest millions,
and could reach them only by means of the printing press.

Doctor Crane lives in New York and does most of his work there.



PRELUDE

The voyager entering a new country will listen with attention to the
traveller who is just returning from its exploration; and the young
warrior buckling on his armour may be benefited by the experiences
of the old warrior who is laying his armour off. I have climbed the
Hill of Life, and am past the summit, _I suppose_, and perhaps it
may help those just venturing the first incline to know what I think
I would do if I had it to do over.

I have lived an average life. I have had the same kind of follies,
fears, and fires my twenty-one-year-old reader has. I have failed
often and bitterly. I have loved and hated, lost and won, done some
good deeds and many bad ones. I have had some measure of success and
I have made about every kind of mistake there is to make. In other
words, I have lived a full, active, human life, and have got thus
far safely along.

I am on the shady side of fifty. As people grow old they accumulate
two kinds of spiritual supplies: one, a pile of doubts,
questionings, and mysteries; and the other, a much smaller pile of
positive conclusions. There is a great temptation to expatiate upon
the former subjects, for negative and critical statements have a
seductive appearance of depth and much more of a flavour of wisdom
than clear and succinct declarations. But I will endeavour to resist
this temptation, and will set down, as concisely as I can, some of
the positive convictions I have gained.

For the sake of orderly thought, I will make Ten Points. They might
of course just as well be six points or forty, but ten seems to be
the number most easily remembered, since we have ten fingers, first
and "handiest" of counters.



21


I

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD "DO THE NEXT THING"


The first duty of a human being in this world is to take himself off
other people's backs. I would go to work at something for which my
fellow men would be willing to pay. I would not wait for an Ideal
Job. The only ideal job I ever heard of was the one some other
fellow had.

It is quite important to find the best thing to do. It is much more
important to find something to do. If I were a young artist, I would
paint soap advertisements, if that were all opportunity offered,
until I got ahead enough to indulge in the painting of madonnas and
landscapes. If I were a young musician, I would rather play in a
street band than not at all. If I were a young writer, I would do
hack work, if necessary, until I became able to write the Great
American Novel.

I would go to work. Nothing in all this world I have found is so
good as work.

I believe in the wage system as the best and most practical means of
coördinating human effort. What spoils it is the large indigestible
lumps of unearned money that, because of laws that originated in
special privilege, are injected into the body politic, by
inheritance and other legal artificialities.

If I were twenty-one I would resolve to take no dollar for which I
had not contributed something in the world's work. If a
philanthropist gave me a million dollars I would decline it. If a
rich father or uncle left me a fortune, I would hand it over to the
city treasury. All great wealth units come, directly or indirectly,
from the people and should go to them. All inheritance should be
limited to, say, $100,000. If Government would do that there would
be no trouble with the wage system.

If I were twenty-one I would keep clean of endowed money. The
happiest people I have known have been those whose bread and butter
depended upon their daily exertion.



II

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD ADJUST MYSELF


More people I have known have suffered because they did not know how
to adjust themselves than for any other reason. And the
happiest-hearted people I have met have been those that have the
knack of adapting themselves to whatever happens.

I would begin with my relatives. While I might easily conceive a
better set of uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, and so on, yet
Destiny gave me precisely the relatives I need. I may not want them,
but I need them. So of my friends and acquaintances and fellow
workmen. Every man's life is a plan of God. Fate brings to me the
very souls out of the unknown that I ought to know. If I cannot get
along with them, be happy and appreciated, I could not get along
with another set of my own picking. A man who is looking for ideal
human beings to make up his circle of acquaintances would as well go
at once and jump into the river.

The God of Things as They Ought to Be is a humbug. There is but one
God, and He is the God of Things as They Are.

Half of my problem is Me; the other half is Circumstances. My task
is to bring results out of the combination of the two.

Life is not a science, to be learned; it is an art, to be practised.
Ability comes by doing. Wisdom comes not from others; it is a
secretion of experience.

Life is not like a problem in arithmetic, to be solved by learning
the rule; it is more like a puzzle of blocks, or wire rings--you
just keep trying one way after another, until finally you succeed,
maybe.

I think it was Josh Billings who said that in the Game of Life, as
in a game of cards, we have to play the cards dealt to us; and the
good player is not the one who always wins, but the one who plays a
poor hand well.



III

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD TAKE CARE OF MY BODY


The comfort and efficiency of my days depend fundamentally upon the
condition of this physical machine I am housed in. I would look out
for it as carefully as I attend to my automobile, so that it might
perform its functions smoothly and with the minimum of trouble.

To this end I would note the four X's. They are Examination,
Excretion, Exercise, Excess.

EXAMINATION: I would have my body thoroughly inspected by
intelligent scientists once a year. I do not believe in thinking too
much about one's health, but I believe in finding out the facts, and
particularly the weaknesses, of one's mechanism, before one proceeds
to forget it.

EXCRETION: By far the most important item to attend to in regard to
the body is the waste pipes, including the colon, the bladder, and
the pores. Most diseases have their origin in the colon. I would see
to it that it was thoroughly cleaned every day. In addition, I would
drink plenty of water, and would take some form of exercise every
day that would induce perspiration. Most of my sicknesses have come
from self-poisoning, and I would make it my main care to eliminate
the waste.

EXERCISE: I would, if I were twenty-one, take up some daily system
of exercise that would bring into play all the voluntary muscles of
the body, and especially those which from my occupation tend to
disuse. I would devote half an hour to an hour daily to this
purpose.

EXCESS: I would take no stimulant of any kind whatsoever. Whatever
whips the body up to excess destroys the efficiency of the organism.
Hence I would not touch alcoholic drinks in any form. If one never
begins with alcohol he can find much more physical pleasure and
power without it. The day of alcohol is past, with intelligent
people. Science has condemned it as a food. Business has banned it.
It remains only as the folly of the weak and fatuous.

I would drink no tea or coffee, as these are stimulants and not
foods. Neither would I use tobacco. The healthy human body will
furnish more of the joy of life, if it is not abused, than can be
given by any of the artificial tonics which the ignorance and
weakness of men have discovered.

If I were twenty-one, all this!



IV

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD TRAIN MY MIND


I would realize that my eventual success depends mostly upon the
quality and power of my brain. Hence I would train it so as to get
the best out of it.

Most of the failures I have seen, especially in professional life,
have been due to mental laziness. I was a preacher for years, and
found out that the greatest curse of the ministry is laziness. It is
probably the same among lawyers and physicians. It certainly is so
among actors and writers. Hence, I would let no day pass without its
period of hard, keen, mental exertion so that my mind would be
always as a steel spring, or like a well-oiled engine, ready,
resilient, and powerful.

And in this connection I would recognize that repetition is better
than effort. Mastery, perfection, the doing of difficult things with
ease and precision, depend more upon doing things over and over than
upon putting forth great effort.

I would especially purge myself as far as possible of intellectual
cowardice and intellectual dishonesty. By intellectual dishonesty I
mean what is called expediency; that is, forming, or adhering to, an
opinion, not because we are convinced of its truth, but because of
the effect it will have. A mind should, at twenty-one, marry Truth,
and "cleave only unto her, till death do them part, for better, for
worse."

By intellectual cowardice I mean all superstitions, premonitions,
and other forms of mental paralysis or panic caused by what is
vague. To heed signs, omens, cryptic sayings, and all talk of fate
and luck, is nothing but mental dirt. I have seen many bright minds
sullied by it. It is worthy only of the mind of an ignorant savage.



V

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD BE HAPPY


By this I imply that any one can be happy if he will. Happiness does
not depend on circumstances, but upon Me.

This is perhaps the greatest truth in the world, and the one most
persistently disbelieved.

Happiness, said Carlyle, is as the value of a common fraction, which
results from dividing the numerator by the denominator. The
numerator, in life, is What We Have. The denominator is What We
Think We Ought to Have. Mankind may be divided into two classes:
Fools and Wise. The fools are eternally trying to get happiness by
multiplying the numerator, the wise divide the denominator. They
both come to the same--only one you can do and the other is
impossible.

If you have only one thousand dollars and think you ought to have
two thousand dollars, the answer is one thousand divided by two
thousand, which is one half. Go and get another thousand and you
have two thousand divided by two thousand, which is one; you have
doubled your contentment. But the trouble is that in human affairs
as you multiply your numerator you unconsciously multiply your
denominator at the same time, and you get nowhere. By the time your
supply reaches two thousand dollars your wants have risen to
twenty-five hundred dollars.

How much easier simply to reduce your Notion of What You Ought to
Have. Get your idea down to one thousand, which you can easily do if
you know the art of self-mastery, and you have one thousand divided
by one thousand, which is one, and a much simpler and more sensible
process than that of trying to get another one thousand dollars.

This is the most valuable secret of life. Nothing is of more worth
to the youth than to awake to the truth that he can change his
wants.

Not only all happiness, but all culture, all spiritual growth, all
real, inward success, is a process of changing one's wants.

So if I were twenty-one I would make up my mind to be happy. You get
about what is coming to you, in any event, in this world, and
happiness and misery depend on how you take it; why not be happy?



VI

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD GET MARRIED


I would not wait until I became able to support a wife. I would
marry while poor, and marry a poor girl. I have seen all kinds of
wives, and by far the greatest number of successful ones were those
that married poor.

Any man of twenty-one has a better chance for happiness, moral
stature, and earthly success, if married than if unmarried.

I married young, and poor as Job's turkey. I have been in some hard
places, seen poverty and trial, and I have had more than my share of
success, but in not one instance, either of failure or triumph,
would I have been better off single. My partner in this task of
living has doubled every joy and halved every defeat.

There's a deal of discussion over sex problems. There is but one
wholesome, normal, practical, and God-blessed solution to the sex
question, and that is the loyal love of one man and one woman.

Many young people play the fool and marry the wrong person, but my
observation has been that "there's no fool like the old fool," that
the longer marriage is postponed the greater are the chances of
mistake, and that those couples are the most successful in matrimony
who begin in youth and grow old together.

In choosing a wife I would insist on three qualifications:

1. She should be healthy. It is all well enough to admire an
invalid, respect and adore her, but a healthy, live man needs a
healthy woman for his companion, if he would save himself a thousand
ills.

2. She should have good common sense. No matter how pretty and
charming a fool may be, and some of them are wonderfully winning, it
does not pay to marry her. Someone has said that pretty women with
no sense are like a certain cheap automobile: they are all right to
run around with, but you don't want to own one.

And 3. She should be cheerful. A sunny, brave, bright disposition is
a wife's best dowry.

As to money, or station in life, or cleverness, or good looks, they
should not enter at all into the matter. If I could find a girl,
healthy, sensible, and cheerful, and if I loved her, I'd marry her,
if I were twenty-one.



VII

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD SAVE MONEY


Money has a deal to do with contentment in this workaday world, and
I'd have some of my own. There isn't a human being but could save a
little. Every man, in America at least, could live on nine tenths of
what he does live on, and save the other tenth. And the man who
regularly saves no money is a fool, just a plain fool, whether he be
an actor getting one thousand dollars a week or a ditch-digger
getting one dollar a day.

And I would get my life insured. Life insurance is the most
practical way for a young man, especially if he be a professional
man, or any one not gifted with the knack of making money, to
achieve financial comfort. The life insurance companies are as safe
as any money institution can be. You are compelled to save in order
to pay your premiums, and you probably need that sort of whip. And
those dependent upon you are protected against the financial
distress that would be caused by your death. I believe life
insurance to be the best way to save money, at least for one who
knows little about money.



VIII

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD STUDY THE ART OF PLEASING


Much of the content from life is due to having pleasant people
around you. Hence I would form habits and cultivate manners that
would please them.

For instance, I would make my personal appearance as attractive as
possible. I would look clean, well-dressed, and altogether as
engaging as the material I had to work with would allow.

I would be punctual. To keep people waiting is simply insolent
egotism.

I would, if my voice were unpleasant, have it cultivated until it
became agreeable in tone. I would speak low. I would not mumble, but
learn the art of clear, distinct speech. It is very trying to
associate with persons who talk so that it is a constant effort to
understand their words.

I would learn the art of conversation, of small talk. I would equip
myself to be able to entertain the grouchiest, most blasé people.
For there is hardly a business in the world in which it is not a
great advantage to be able to converse entertainingly.

The secret of being a good conversationalist is probably a genuine,
unselfish interest in others. That and practice. It consists more in
making the other person talk than in talking yourself.

I would learn how to write so that it would not burden people to
read it. In this matter, one hint: The English language is composed
of separate letters, hence, when you have written one letter, if you
will move your pen along before you write the next we shall be able,
probably, to discover what you intend, no matter how imperfectly you
compose your separate letters.

I would not argue. I never knew one person in my life that was
convinced by argument. Discuss, yes; but not argue. The difference
is this: in discussion you are searching for the truth, and in
argument you want to prove that you are right. In discussion,
therefore, you are anxious to know your neighbour's views, and you
listen to him. In argument, you don't care anything about his
opinions, you want him to hear yours; hence, while he's talking you
are simply thinking over what you are going to say as soon as you
get a chance.

Altogether, I would try to make my personality pleasing, so that
people would in turn endeavour to be pleasing to me.



IX

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD DETERMINE, EVEN IF I COULD NEVER BE
ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD, THAT I WOULD BE A THOROUGHBRED


Thoroughbred, as it is currently used, is a word rather difficult to
define, perhaps entirely non-definable. Yet we all know what it
means--it is like Love.

But it implies being several things: One, being a good sport, by
which I mean the kind of a man that does not whine when he fails,
but gets up smiling and tackles it again, the kind of man whose fund
of cheer and courage does not depend upon success, but keeps brave
and sweet even in failure.

Let me quote what I have written elsewhere on this point:

    In one of the plays of this season, "The Very Minute," one
    of the characters says something to this effect: You go on
    till you can go no further, you reach the limit of human
    endurance, and then--you hold on another minute, and that's
    the minute that counts.

    The idea is a good one. That last minute, the other side of
    the breaking point, is worth thinking about.

    It is that which marks the thoroughbred.

    There is a something in the hundredth man that bespeaks a
    finer quality. It is unconquerableness, heroism,
    stick-to-it-iveness, or whatever you have a mind to call it.

    We have a way of attributing this to breeding, after the
    analogy of horses and dogs; but while there's something in
    blood I doubt if it is a very trustworthy guaranty of
    excellence. So many vigorous parents have children that are
    morally spindling, and so many surprising samples of
    superiority come from common stock, that heredity is far
    from dependable.

    But the quality exists, no matter how you account for it--a
    certain toughness of moral fibre, an indestructibility of
    purpose.

    Any mind is over matter, but there are some wills so
    imperial, so dominant over the body, that they keep it from
    collapse even after its strength is spent.

    We see it physically in the prize fighter who "doesn't know
    when he is beaten," in the race horse that throws an
    unexpected dash into the last stretch even after his last
    ounce of force is gone, in the Spartan soldier who exclaimed
    "If I fall I fight on my knees."

    Of all human qualities that have lit up the sombreness of
    this tragic earth, I count this, of being a thoroughbred,
    the happiest.

    It has saved more souls than penance and punishment, it has
    rescued more business enterprises than shrewdness, it has
    won more battles and more games, and altogether felicitously
    loosed more hard knots in the tangled skein of destiny than
    any other virtue.

    Most people are quitters. They reach the limit. They are
    familiar with the last straw.

    But the hundredth man is a thoroughbred. You cannot corner
    him. He will not give up. He cannot find the word "fail" in
    his lexicon. He has never learned to whine.

    What shall we do with him? There's nothing to do but to hand
    him success. It's just as well to deliver him the prize, for
    he will get it eventually. There's no use trying to drown
    him, for he won't sink.

    There's only one creature in the world better than the man
    who is a thoroughbred. It is the woman who is a
    thoroughbred.



X

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD MAKE SOME PERMANENT, AMICABLE
ARRANGEMENT WITH MY CONSCIENCE


God, Duty, Death, and Moral Responsibility are huge facts which no
life can escape. They are the external sphinxes by the road of every
man's existence. He must frame some sort of an answer to them.

It may please the reader to know how I have answered them. It is
very simple.

I am familiar, to some extent, with most of the religions, cults,
and creeds of mankind. There are certain points common to every
decent religion, for in every kind of church you are taught to be
honest, pure-minded, unselfish, reverent, brave, loyal, and the
like.

These elements of religion may be called the Great Common Divisor of
all faiths.

This G. C. D. is my religion. It is what more than fifty years of
thought and experience has winnowed out for me. It is my religion.
And I think I glimpse what Emerson meant when he wrote that "all
good men are of one religion."

And the matter can be reduced to yet plainer terms. There is but
"one thing needful," and there's no use being "careful and troubled
about many things." That one thing is to _do right_.

To do Right and not Wrong will save any man's soul, and if he
believes any doctrine that implies doing wrong he is lost.

So, let a man of twenty-one resolve, and keep his purpose, that, no
matter what comes, no matter how mixed his theology may be, no
matter what may be the rewards of wrong-doing, or the perils and
losses of right-doing, he will do right; then, if there is any moral
law in the universe, that man must sometime, somewhere, arrive at
his inward triumph, his spiritual victory and peace.

And the corollary of this is that if I have done wrong the best and
only way to cure it is to quit doing wrong and begin to do right. If
any man will stick to this, make it his anchor in times of storm,
his pole-star in nights of uncertainty, he will cast out of his life
that which is life's greatest enemy--Fear. He need not fear man nor
woman, nor governments nor mischief-makers, nor the devil nor God.
He will be able to say with the accent of sincerity that word of
William Ernest Henley, to me the greatest spiritual declaration in
any language:

  Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the pit from Pole to Pole,
  I thank whatever gods may be
    For my unconquerable soul.

  In the fell clutch of circumstance
    I have not winced nor cried aloud,
  Beneath the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.

  It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
  I am the master of my fate,
    I am the captain of my soul.

Let me repeat that I have not been telling what I did with the
implication that the youth of twenty-one would do well to follow me.
I did not do all these things. Far from it! I wish I had. I only say
that if I were twenty-one, as I now see life, I would do as I have
here suggested. But perhaps I would not. I might go about barking my
shins and burning my fingers, making idiotic experiments in the
endeavour to prove that I was an exception to all the rules, and
knew a little more than all the ancients. So let not the young man
be discouraged if he has committed follies; for there seems to
emerge a peculiar and vivid wisdom from error, from making an ass of
one's self, and all that, more useful to one's own life than any
wisdom he can get from sages or copybooks.

In what I have written I have not tried to indicate the art of
"getting on," or of acquiring riches or position. These usually are
what is meant by success. But success is of two kinds, outward and
inward, or apparent and real. Outward success may depend somewhat
upon what is in you, but it depends more upon luck. It is a gambling
game. And it is hardly worth a strong man's while. Inward and real
success, on the contrary, is not an affair of chance at all, but is
as certain as any natural law. Any human being that will observe the
laws of life as carefully as successful business men observe the
laws of business will come to that inward poise and triumph which is
life's happiest crown, as certainly as the stars move in their
courses.

I would, therefore, if I were twenty-one, study the art of life. It
is good to know arithmetic and geography and bookkeeping and all
practical matters, but it is better to know how to live, how to
spend your day so that at the end of it you shall be content, how to
spend your life so that you feel it has been worth while.



THE END





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