章节正文
and caustic comment. He never said a word
in defense; he just kept on wearing the diamond.
One day, however, after some years, he took it
off, and people said, ``He has listened to the
criticism at last!'' He smiled reminiscently as he
told me about this, and said: ``A dear old deacon
of my congregation gave me that diamond and I
did not like to hurt his feelings by refusing it.
It really bothered me to wear such a glaring big
thing, but because I didn't want to hurt the old
deacon's feelings I kept on wearing it until he
was dead. Then I stopped wearing it.''
The ambition of Russell Conwell is to continue
working and working until the very last moment
of his life. In work he forgets his sadness, his
loneliness, his age. And he said to me one day,
``I will die in harness.''
IX
THE STORY OF ACRES OF DIAMONDS
CONSIDERING everything, the most remarkable
thing in Russell Conwell's remarkable
life is his lecture, ``Acres of Diamonds.''
That is, the lecture itself, the number of times
he has delivered it, what a source of inspiration
it has been to myriads, the money that he has
made and is making, and, still more, the purpose
to which he directs the money. In the
circumstances surrounding ``Acres of Diamonds,'' in
its tremendous success, in the attitude of mind
revealed by the lecture itself and by what Dr.
Conwell does with it, it is illuminative of his
character, his aims, his ability.
The lecture is vibrant with his energy. It flashes
with his hopefulness. It is full of his enthusiasm.
It is packed full of his intensity. It stands for
the possibilities of success in every one. He has
delivered it over five thousand times. The
demand for it never diminishes. The success grows
never less.
There is a time in Russell Conwell's youth of
which it is pain for him to think. He told me of
it one evening, and his voice sank lower and
lower as he went far back into the past. It was
of his days at Yale that he spoke, for they were
days of suffering. For he had not money for
Yale, and in working for more he endured bitter
humiliation. It was not that the work was hard,
for Russell Conwell has always been ready for
hard work. It was not that there were privations
and difficulties, for he has always found difficulties
only things to overcome, and endured privations
with cheerfulfortitude. But it was the
humiliations that he met--the personal humiliations
that after more than half a century make
him suffer in remembering them--yet out of those
humiliations came a marvelous result.
``I determined,'' he says, ``that whatever I
could do to make the way easier at college for
other young men working their way I would do.''
And so, many years ago, he began to devote
every dollar that he made from ``Acres of Diamonds''
to this definite purpose. He has what
may be termed a waiting-list. On that list are
very few cases he has looked into personally.
Infinitely busy man that he is, he cannot do
extensive personal investigation. A large proportion
of his names come to him from college presidents
who know of students in their own colleges
in need of such a helping hand.
``Every night,'' he said, when I asked him to
tell me about it, ``when my lecture is over and
the check is in my hand, I sit down in my room
in the hotel''--what a lonely picture, tool--``I
sit down in my room in the hotel and subtract
from the total sum received my actual expenses
for that place, and make out a check for the
difference and send it to some young man on my
list. And I always send with the check a letter
of advice and helpfulness, expressing my hope
that it will be of some service to him and telling
him that he is to feel under no obligation except
to his Lord. I feel strongly, and I try to make
every young man feel, that there must be no sense
of obligation to me personally. And I tell them
that I am hoping to leave behind me men who
will do more work than I have done. Don't
think that I put in too much advice,'' he added,
with a smile, ``for I only try to let them know
that a friend is trying to help them.''
His face lighted as he spoke. ``There is such a
fascination in it!'' he exclaimed. ``It is just like
a gamble! And as soon as I have sent the letter
and crossed a name off my list, I am aiming for
the next one!''
And after a pause he added: ``I do not attempt
to send any young man enough for all his
expenses. But I want to save him from bitterness,
and each check will help. And, too,'' he concluded,
navely, in the vernacular, ``I don't want
them to lay down on me!''
He told me that he made it clear that he did
not wish to get returns or reports from this
branch of his life-work, for it would take a great
deal of time in watching and thinking and in
the reading and writing of letters. ``But it is
mainly,'' he went on, ``that I do not wish to hold
over their heads the sense of obligation.''
When I suggested that this was surely an
example of bread cast upon the waters that could
not return, he was silent for a little and then said,
thoughtfully: ``As one gets on in years there is
satisfaction in doing a thing for the sake of doing
it. The bread returns in the sense of effort made.''
On a recent trip through Minnesota he was
positively upset, so his secretary told me, through
being recognized on a train by a young man who
had been helped through ``Acres of Diamonds,''
and who, finding that this was really Dr. Conwell,
eagerly brought his wife to join him in most
fervent thanks for his assistance. Both the
husband and his wife were so emotionally overcome
that it quite overcame Dr. Conwell himself.
The lecture, to quote the noble words of Dr.
Conwell himself, is designed to help ``every person,
of either sex, who cherishes the high resolve
of sustaining a career of usefulness and honor.''
It is a lecture of helpfulness. And it is a lecture,
when given with Conwell's voice and face and
manner, that is full of fascination. And yet it is
all so simple!
It is packed full of inspiration, of suggestion,
of aid. He alters it to meet the local circumstances
of the thousands of different places in
which he delivers it. But the base remains the
same. And even those to whom it is an old story
will go to hear him time after time. It amuses him
to say that he knows individuals who have listened
to it twenty times.
It begins with a story told to Conwell by an
old Arab as the two journeyed together toward
Nineveh, and, as you listen, you hear the actual
voices and you see the sands of the desert and the
waving palms. The lecturer's voice is so easy,
so effortless, it seems so ordinary and matter-of-
fact--yet the entire scene is instantly vital and
alive! Instantly the man has his audience under
a sort of spell, eager to listen, ready to be merry
or grave. He has the faculty of control, the vital
quality that makes the orator.
The same people will go to hear this lecture
over and over, and that is the kind of tribute
that Conwell likes. I recently heard him deliver
it in his own church, where it would naturally
be thought to be an old story, and where, presumably,
only a few of the faithful would go; but it
was quite clear that all of his church are the
faithful, for it was a large audience that came to
listen to him; hardly a seat in the great
auditorium was vacant. And it should be added
that, although it was in his own church, it was
not a free lecture, where a throng might be
expected, but that each one paid a liberal sum for
a seat--and the paying of admission is always a
practical test of the sincerity of desire to hear.
And the people were swept along by the current
as if lecturer and lecture were of novel interest.
The lecture in itself is good to read, but it is only
when it is illumined by Conwell's vivid personality
that one understands how it influences in
the actual delivery.
On that particular evening he had decided to
give the lecture in the same form as when he first
delivered it many years ago, without any of the
alterations that have come with time and changing
localities, and as he went on, with the audience
rippling and bubbling with laughter as usual,
he never doubted that he was giving it as he had
given it years before; and yet--so up-to-date and
alive must he necessarily be, in spite of a definitive
effort to set himself back--every once in a while
he was coming out with illustrations from such
distinctly recent things as the automobile!
The last time I heard him was the 5,124th time
for the lecture. Doesn't it seem incredible! 5,124
times' I noticed that he was to deliver it at a
little out-of-the-way place, difficult for any
considerable number to get to, and I wondered just
how much of an audience would gather and how
they would be impressed. So I went over from
there I was, a few miles away. The road was
dark and I pictured a small audience, but when
I got there I found the church building in which
he was to deliver the lecture had a seating
capacity of 830 and that precisely 830 people were
already seated there and that a fringe of others
were standing behind. Many had come from
miles away. Yet the lecture had scarcely, if at
all, been advertised. But people had said to one
another: ``Aren't you going to hear Dr. Conwell?''
And the word had thus been passed along.
I remember how fascinating it was to watch
in defense; he just kept on wearing the diamond.
One day, however, after some years, he took it
off, and people said, ``He has listened to the
criticism at last!'' He smiled reminiscently as he
told me about this, and said: ``A dear old deacon
of my congregation gave me that diamond and I
did not like to hurt his feelings by refusing it.
It really bothered me to wear such a glaring big
thing, but because I didn't want to hurt the old
deacon's feelings I kept on wearing it until he
was dead. Then I stopped wearing it.''
The ambition of Russell Conwell is to continue
working and working until the very last moment
of his life. In work he forgets his sadness, his
loneliness, his age. And he said to me one day,
``I will die in harness.''
IX
THE STORY OF ACRES OF DIAMONDS
CONSIDERING everything, the most remarkable
thing in Russell Conwell's remarkable
life is his lecture, ``Acres of Diamonds.''
That is, the lecture itself, the number of times
he has delivered it, what a source of inspiration
it has been to myriads, the money that he has
made and is making, and, still more, the purpose
to which he directs the money. In the
circumstances surrounding ``Acres of Diamonds,'' in
its tremendous success, in the attitude of mind
revealed by the lecture itself and by what Dr.
Conwell does with it, it is illuminative of his
character, his aims, his ability.
The lecture is vibrant with his energy. It flashes
with his hopefulness. It is full of his enthusiasm.
It is packed full of his intensity. It stands for
the possibilities of success in every one. He has
delivered it over five thousand times. The
demand for it never diminishes. The success grows
never less.
There is a time in Russell Conwell's youth of
which it is pain for him to think. He told me of
it one evening, and his voice sank lower and
lower as he went far back into the past. It was
of his days at Yale that he spoke, for they were
days of suffering. For he had not money for
Yale, and in working for more he endured bitter
humiliation. It was not that the work was hard,
for Russell Conwell has always been ready for
hard work. It was not that there were privations
and difficulties, for he has always found difficulties
only things to overcome, and endured privations
with cheerfulfortitude. But it was the
humiliations that he met--the personal humiliations
that after more than half a century make
him suffer in remembering them--yet out of those
humiliations came a marvelous result.
``I determined,'' he says, ``that whatever I
could do to make the way easier at college for
other young men working their way I would do.''
And so, many years ago, he began to devote
every dollar that he made from ``Acres of Diamonds''
to this definite purpose. He has what
may be termed a waiting-list. On that list are
very few cases he has looked into personally.
Infinitely busy man that he is, he cannot do
extensive personal investigation. A large proportion
of his names come to him from college presidents
who know of students in their own colleges
in need of such a helping hand.
``Every night,'' he said, when I asked him to
tell me about it, ``when my lecture is over and
the check is in my hand, I sit down in my room
in the hotel''--what a lonely picture, tool--``I
sit down in my room in the hotel and subtract
from the total sum received my actual expenses
for that place, and make out a check for the
difference and send it to some young man on my
list. And I always send with the check a letter
of advice and helpfulness, expressing my hope
that it will be of some service to him and telling
him that he is to feel under no obligation except
to his Lord. I feel strongly, and I try to make
every young man feel, that there must be no sense
of obligation to me personally. And I tell them
that I am hoping to leave behind me men who
will do more work than I have done. Don't
think that I put in too much advice,'' he added,
with a smile, ``for I only try to let them know
that a friend is trying to help them.''
His face lighted as he spoke. ``There is such a
fascination in it!'' he exclaimed. ``It is just like
a gamble! And as soon as I have sent the letter
and crossed a name off my list, I am aiming for
the next one!''
And after a pause he added: ``I do not attempt
to send any young man enough for all his
expenses. But I want to save him from bitterness,
and each check will help. And, too,'' he concluded,
navely, in the vernacular, ``I don't want
them to lay down on me!''
He told me that he made it clear that he did
not wish to get returns or reports from this
branch of his life-work, for it would take a great
deal of time in watching and thinking and in
the reading and writing of letters. ``But it is
mainly,'' he went on, ``that I do not wish to hold
over their heads the sense of obligation.''
When I suggested that this was surely an
example of bread cast upon the waters that could
not return, he was silent for a little and then said,
thoughtfully: ``As one gets on in years there is
satisfaction in doing a thing for the sake of doing
it. The bread returns in the sense of effort made.''
On a recent trip through Minnesota he was
positively upset, so his secretary told me, through
being recognized on a train by a young man who
had been helped through ``Acres of Diamonds,''
and who, finding that this was really Dr. Conwell,
eagerly brought his wife to join him in most
fervent thanks for his assistance. Both the
husband and his wife were so emotionally overcome
that it quite overcame Dr. Conwell himself.
The lecture, to quote the noble words of Dr.
Conwell himself, is designed to help ``every person,
of either sex, who cherishes the high resolve
of sustaining a career of usefulness and honor.''
It is a lecture of helpfulness. And it is a lecture,
when given with Conwell's voice and face and
manner, that is full of fascination. And yet it is
all so simple!
It is packed full of inspiration, of suggestion,
of aid. He alters it to meet the local circumstances
of the thousands of different places in
which he delivers it. But the base remains the
same. And even those to whom it is an old story
will go to hear him time after time. It amuses him
to say that he knows individuals who have listened
to it twenty times.
It begins with a story told to Conwell by an
old Arab as the two journeyed together toward
Nineveh, and, as you listen, you hear the actual
voices and you see the sands of the desert and the
waving palms. The lecturer's voice is so easy,
so effortless, it seems so ordinary and matter-of-
fact--yet the entire scene is instantly vital and
alive! Instantly the man has his audience under
a sort of spell, eager to listen, ready to be merry
or grave. He has the faculty of control, the vital
quality that makes the orator.
The same people will go to hear this lecture
over and over, and that is the kind of tribute
that Conwell likes. I recently heard him deliver
it in his own church, where it would naturally
be thought to be an old story, and where, presumably,
only a few of the faithful would go; but it
was quite clear that all of his church are the
faithful, for it was a large audience that came to
listen to him; hardly a seat in the great
auditorium was vacant. And it should be added
that, although it was in his own church, it was
not a free lecture, where a throng might be
expected, but that each one paid a liberal sum for
a seat--and the paying of admission is always a
practical test of the sincerity of desire to hear.
And the people were swept along by the current
as if lecturer and lecture were of novel interest.
The lecture in itself is good to read, but it is only
when it is illumined by Conwell's vivid personality
that one understands how it influences in
the actual delivery.
On that particular evening he had decided to
give the lecture in the same form as when he first
delivered it many years ago, without any of the
alterations that have come with time and changing
localities, and as he went on, with the audience
rippling and bubbling with laughter as usual,
he never doubted that he was giving it as he had
given it years before; and yet--so up-to-date and
alive must he necessarily be, in spite of a definitive
effort to set himself back--every once in a while
he was coming out with illustrations from such
distinctly recent things as the automobile!
The last time I heard him was the 5,124th time
for the lecture. Doesn't it seem incredible! 5,124
times' I noticed that he was to deliver it at a
little out-of-the-way place, difficult for any
considerable number to get to, and I wondered just
how much of an audience would gather and how
they would be impressed. So I went over from
there I was, a few miles away. The road was
dark and I pictured a small audience, but when
I got there I found the church building in which
he was to deliver the lecture had a seating
capacity of 830 and that precisely 830 people were
already seated there and that a fringe of others
were standing behind. Many had come from
miles away. Yet the lecture had scarcely, if at
all, been advertised. But people had said to one
another: ``Aren't you going to hear Dr. Conwell?''
And the word had thus been passed along.
I remember how fascinating it was to watch
- comment [´kɔment]
n.&v.评论；评注；注意 (初中英语单词) - ambition [æm´biʃən] n.雄心，野心；企图 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- tremendous [tri´mendəs] a.可怕的；巨大的 (初中英语单词)
- energy [´enədʒi] n.活力，精力；能力 (初中英语单词)
- suffering [´sʌfəriŋ] n.痛苦；灾害 (初中英语单词)
- overcome [,əuvə´kʌm] vt.战胜，克服 (初中英语单词)
- cheerful [´tʃiəful] a.快乐的；高兴的 (初中英语单词)
- marvelous [´mɑ:viləs] (=marvellous) a.奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- definite [´definit] a.确定的，明确的 (初中英语单词)
- investigation [in,vesti´geiʃən] n.调查(研究) (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- actual [´æktʃuəl] a.现实的；实际的 (初中英语单词)
- obligation [,ɔbli´geiʃən] n.义务；职责；合约 (初中英语单词)
- strongly [´strɔŋli] ad.强烈地；强有力地 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- assistance [ə´sistəns] n.协作；援助；帮助 (初中英语单词)
- career [kə´riə] n.经历；生涯；职业 (初中英语单词)
- instantly [´instəntli] ad.立即，立刻 (初中英语单词)
- audience [´ɔ:diəns] n.听众；观众；接见 (初中英语单词)
- faculty [´fækəlti] n.才干；天赋；院，系 (初中英语单词)
- faithful [´feiθfəl] a.忠实的；可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- vacant [´veikənt] a.空虚的，无表情的 (初中英语单词)
- liberal [´libərəl] a.大方的 n.开明的人 (初中英语单词)
- admission [əd´miʃən] n.接纳；承认 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- fascinating [´fæsineitiŋ] a.迷人，使神魂颠倒的 (初中英语单词)
- sadness [´sædnis] n.悲哀；悲痛；凄惨 (高中英语单词)
- surrounding [sə´raundiŋ] n.周围的事物 (高中英语单词)
- intensity [in´tensiti] a.激烈；强度；深度 (高中英语单词)
- personally [´pə:sənəli] ad.亲自；就个人来说 (高中英语单词)
- minnesota [,mini´səutə] n.明尼苏达 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- inspiration [,inspi´reiʃən] n.鼓舞；灵感；启发 (高中英语单词)
- throng [θrɔŋ] n.群众 v.拥挤；群集 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- necessarily [´nesisərili] ad.必定，必然地 (高中英语单词)
- precisely [pri´saisli] ad.精确地；刻板地 (高中英语单词)
- fringe [´frindʒ] n.穗；边缘；刘海 (高中英语单词)
- congregation [,kɔŋgri´geiʃən] n.集合；团体 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- overcame [,əuvə´keim] overcome的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- fascination [,fæsi´neiʃən] n.魅力；强烈爱好 (英语四级单词)
- sincerity [sin´seriti] n.真诚；诚意 (英语四级单词)
- fortitude [´fɔ:titju:d] n.坚忍；刚毅 (英语六级单词)
- usefulness [´ju:sfəlnis] n.有用(性)；有益(性) (英语六级单词)
- lecturer [´lektʃərə] n.演讲者；讲师 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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