The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-01-26
DARING EXPLOITS.
Does Nan Control His Nerves, Or
Do They Control Him.
Cooiness Of Blondin, Napoleon, Wellington,
Grant, Gladstone and Others What Henry
Clews Has to Say About It.

james farton, in the New DIRK Ledger:
a play used 10 be popular in New York
caileo, The Nervous Man. or the Man of
Nerve The play is almost forgotten, but
we nave still among us both the kinds of
men delineated, though in very unequal
hunters. In Wall street, there are proba-
oIy Thousand nervous men to one man of
nerve who gets out of Wall street the victor,
ana generally wherever we find him, he is
apt TO become master of the situation. We
may say. perhaps, that The man of nerve is
related 10 the nervous crowd as the lion is
to his prey.
some readers have doubtless had the
pressure Of watching the exploits of Mr..
IN aries Parker, otherwise called "Steeple
h"rie' who enjoys monopoly in the
BUSINESS OF painting and repairing high
s'eel les and towers. ! have seen him at
WORK several times. and it is evident, if you
observe nm with an opera-glass, that he is
JUST as much at home 200 feet in the air,
WIN nothing between him and destruction
put thin cord, as he was eating buckwheat
cakes for bis breakfast. He prefers to
ascend his steeple before sunrise when no
one put himself is astir, and he adjusts his
tackle without any assistance whatever,
even when lie has to affiX cross heavier
yuan himself TO the top of a Steeple. he can
90 these things because he is as cool and
quiet in his nerves up there near the clouds
as another man would be while decorating
post eight feet high.
1t was so with Biondin who USED TO make,
COOK and eat an omelet on tight rope
hundred feet above the ground, and who
carried man on his back on a rope stretched
across Niagara River When lie descended
from his rope after performing these feats
his pulse was perfectly natural, and the
man had evidently done his work with abso-
Iute ease. l have cOnverscd with the man
Mhom he carried across Niagara. He said
mat II was his knowledge Of this fact that
gave him the confidence to take that extra
ordinary ride over the abyss.
WHEN BLoNDIN," he SAID,
Told me he was sure he could do it, I, who
had been his agent for two years, was also
sure of it,"
This quality, call it nerve or what you will,
IS possessed by all nen of great executive
force. MI Clews the banker, in his we'll
known work upon Wall street, gives an
amusing illustration of this truth in descrb-
ing one Of Mr. Jay Gould's lieutenants, a
man naturally OF eXcitable and demon
stratlve temperament.
He has, says Mr.. Clews, "the COM
posed, uneXctable manner of Gould to per-
lection, and Is lever known, no matter how
great the piovocation may be. to speak ex-
cept III a iow-pitched tone"
III the case Of the chief, this manner in
dlcates the manner Of the man and stamps
HIM As the man of nerve.
All the successful Generals appear to have
possessed this quality in an eminent degree.
on M0itke, as is well known. is devoted
Wllst-piayeT. During the French war,
whenever circumstances / emitted it, this
game vas his favorite evening amusement,
ana IL often happened that kilograms would
be handed 10 him of the greatest importance
Wnlle he was playing. The General would
read them with tantallZng elaboration,
without the slightest change of cOuntenance,
lay them on the table with the writing
downward, and play cut the game with per-
fect serenity. Ii was remarked at the time
that the arrivalof these kilograms was much
more disturbing TO the nervous men playing
with hlln than TO the man OF nerve 10 WHOM
ihey were addressed.
Bonaparte occasionally gave way to ex-
pioslons OF anger, which, however, were
often feigned for the purpose of lmpreSsing
ana alarming the person With whom he
conversed; but on the battlefield as well as
during the critical hours preceding a battle,
lie was As cool as Biondiu, who reSembled
MIN In appearance, and lie gained n little in
weight III the most exciting years OF his lille.
In Italy, al y, he was still meager and
gaunt AT Aus teTlilZ. seven years later, ne
was IN good condition; ana when, SIX years
later, he married Marie Louise, he was
rutund and verged toward the pUrtiy. This
shows that while he fretted and frightened
Nle whole civilized world, and made life
more difficult for every honest man iii
Christend"m, the perpetratOr Of The mischief
was very much at his ease.
singular case was
THAT OF GENERAL GRANT,
Who was one of the small number of SOL
diers in the late war who never swOre But
this was not half so remarkable as the fact
which he once mentioned in conversation
that he lad never felt the need of explosives.
Most men, il q bTick-bat falls upon their
sensitive toes, relieve their feelings by eX-
plosivc words, but he never did. He seemed
To be devoid of the nervous susceptibility
that makes men use language rdiculouSly
violent upon experiencing a sudden shock
of pain As one of his aids remarked:
General Grant not only never swore, but
he never wanted to-
Wellington, on the contrary was pro-
fuse user Of eXpletives, and so was Nelson,
but both exhibited Blundinian GOODNESS at
critical moments When the late Earl Rus
sell was very young man he visited Wei
llngtonS headquarters in Spain, and he sat
next 10 him at dinner in the evening. While
the General and his staff were at dinner the
most active preparations were going on for
n retreat that very nigbt-a retreat involv-
ing the abandonment of Madrid. The
young guest knew nothing of this. Wei
lington was particularly merry, telling
comic stories OF camp-Iife, and giving a
ludlcrOus description OF his three iron guns,
called Thunder" lightning" and IS Nell
SON. which had been varicusly battered by
the enemy.
after dinner" says Earl Russell. my
companions ana | were informed by Colonel
Ponsonby that retreat was resolved upon
Tor that night, aud we were advised TO pack
ourselves off rs quickly rs we could. We
lost no TINE IN following that advice, and,
for my part, found very comfortable bed
OF chopped straw, some leagues from Bur
Cos"
Wellington also had the faculty of taking
nap on the very eve OF battle, and even
during an action while he S waiting for
the development of an extensive maneuyer.
ne ccolneSS OF svna famous orators has
often been admir- q. Mr.. Gladstone once
mentioned fact about himself which goes
lar toward explaining the retention of his
WONDERFUL powers in his eighty-third year.
lie sald that the most exciting and protract-
cd DEBATE IN which he had ever taken part
DID NOT KEEP HIM AWAKE
FIVE minutes after his head touched the pill
low. we have all known speakers whose
nerves become sodisordered by short after
ulnner speech that they cannot sleep for
hours afterward. Probably Wendell Phil
Ups was not as cool before an audience as
7 he always appeared to be. Fer many Years
beIore his death he had premonitious of
heart disease, a malady to which nervous
men are peculiarly subject, but which sell
dom atfllctS the man of nerve.
treat masters Of the art of writing as
th ;.i manuscripts attest, perform their task
WIZ very httle fiet or strain. Some one de-
scrlbed Sir Walter Scott sitting at window
writlng novel with singular composure,
writing rapidly, but not hastily. The manu-
script OF Ihaekeray is almost of itself
enough TO prove the easy mastery which he
possessed OF his art IL flows on evenly,
page after page, with scarcely an erasure,
and there IS no deterioration in the hand
wiring IN the last pages. Dickens, on the
contrary, toiled over his work, and made
change in almost every line after he had
written IT,
Can this valuable quality be acquired?
PROBABLY not. Some small degree of it may
DC attainaoie, but when it is possessed in
an eminent degree it appears 10 be a consti-
tutiOnai and hereditary quality. Mr.. Cough,
VINO addressed in his lifetime about seven
thousand audiences, used to say that he
never went upon platform without "A feel
Ing oil trepldation, ana have myself heard
General b. +. Butler say that, on rising to
speak, he is always conscious of weak
at flla l. e Ia, LID