Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1904-10-01
CONSCIENCE IN WORK
DIR. MARDEN TALKS TO YOUNG
MEN ABOUT DOING EVERY
THING TO A FINISH"
A Magic Success Habit-Nemesis of
Half-Done Tasks-Millions of
Blunders Yearly in Send
Ing Mail.

any MAIL.
Copy right. 1909, BY Joseph h. Bowles)
By 0rison SWEET Marden.
Editor Success Magazine; Author OF
Winning Out, Talks with Great Work
ers, Pushing to the Front" ete.l
NOTHING else reveals the very
IN heart and marrow of character 50
much as the way in which we do our
work. A botched job SHOWS a poor
maker, while a finely-wrought piece oil
work gives one an impression of true
nobility and masterfulness.
We are building every day,
In a good or evil way;
And the structure as II grows
VIII our inmost self disclose.
The habit of half-doing things is a
great demoralizer of character, induc-
ing a mental and moral shiftlessness
which is fatal to achievement. Slip
shod work means slipshod men pr
women. Unless you put the best of
yourself into whatever you do your
character will deteriorate. The slip
shod mind loses confidence in itself
and is soon incapable of producing fine,
exact, systematic work.
You cannot afford to half-do things,
no matter what you get out of it. On
the contrary, an indescribable some
thing is added to the very character
and fiber of the mar wLo does every
thing to a finish; there is a sense o.
completeness, of Wilderness, of salts
faction which comes to the man who
does his very best every time. He is
not haunted by the tail ends of half
finished tasks. He is not kept awake
by thoughts Of dishonest, slipshod
jobs. When he gets through doing his
days work to a finish he Is conscious
that he has been a man, honest with
himself and with his employers; he is
sure that what he has done will bring
him only increased credit and honor as
time goes on; he knows that no fault
or imperfection will come back to re-
proach him. He feels a sense Of pride
in his work which the slipshod man
never feels. lie has put character into
his days work, and If he should not
get his salary, he has at least kept his
self-respect, has added to his man.
hood by his honesty of purpose and
the integrity of his work.
The Master Violin Maker.
Are you looking for gold nuggets
In those rocks?" asked a passer-by of
a man who was building a stone wall.
mo, am looking for their individ-
uality," said the laborer. Every
stone. like a human being, has its own
individuality, and he who would build
a wall as it should be must get ac-
quainted with every stone he handles
and place 1t just where 1t was intended
to 60"
This man was putting his conscience
even into a stone wall. He was de-
termined that it should never rebuke
him when he passed that way in after
years. Because Stradivarius thought
it worth while to put his conscience
into his violins some Of them are
worth from $1,000 to $4,000, or several
times their weight in gold. He says
in a poem by George Eliot:
If my hand Stacked,
I should rob God-slnce He is fullest good
Leaving a blank instead of violins.
Maydole thought it worth while to
put his conscience into a hammer and
to make 1t as good as it could be
made, until a Maydole hammer was
the best in the world. The man who
would put Immortality into his work
must put his conscience into 1t, must
do it to a finish, must, do it as well
as 1t can be done.
Balzac, the great French novelist,
sometimes worked a week or a single
page, and yet many a modern mush-
room writer wonders where Balzac's
fame comes from.
Don't think you will never hear from
a half finished job or neglected task.
1t will never die. 1t will appear to
you at the most unexpected times, in
the most embarrassing situations. A
single broken thread in a web of
cloth is traced back to the girl who
neglected her work in the factory and
the amount of damage is deducted
from her wages. So your botched
jobs, your neglected tasks, will morti-
fly you years hence and keep you from
the success you expected.
Many a youth thinks it does not
matter much whether he does an err
rand properly, finishes his problems or
completes a sled he has started to
make, but years a%fterward, in man
hood, these half-fnished tasks of his
youth and the habits they formed in
his character continually embarrass
and humiliate him, tripping him up
and impeding his progress. The shift
lessness of his youth becomes a habit
so strong that me- ever the strength
of his maturer years can break it.
When a young man applies for a po-
sition he is amazed at being rejected
because a loosely-constructed. badly
spelled letter he wrote years before to
a member of the firm, never thinking
IL COulu dutCt ulo lutulc, VI SUHlt pOUI
work done elsewhere has given him a
reputation that bars him from a new
situation. However unjust it may be,
it is almost impossible for a convict
to live a respected and successful life
even years after his liberation. Take
care not to be convicted of shoddy
work and careless service If you hope
for business success, The habit of
Swimming, of skipping points, is fatal
to all high achievement.
The Dead Letter Avalanche.
On every hand w see evidences Of
blighting carelessness. The dead let
ter department received last veal over
100000 pieces of undelivered mail,
OF these more than 10000 bore no ad-
dress whatever. A great many of these
letters were from business houses. Are
the clerks responsible for this waste
likely to win promotion?
1t costs a prominent New York mer-
chant $4,000 a year to correct mis-
takes in commercial papers, blunders
due to poor writing or the poor Eng
fish of his employees. Everywhere we
see great establishments paying enor-
nous sums in damages for the blund-
ers and ~avoidable mistakes of EN-
ployes. Thousands Of people every
year lose their lives through some