The Majesty of Calmness
William George Jordan, 1900
Where does the calm come from that can withstand a real disaster? The American essayist William George Jordan answered this in 1900: it is stored up on ordinary days. Seven short essays: on calm, on haste, on the unconscious influence we have on others, on relying on yourself, on failure, on the habit of doing your best and on happiness that you cannot catch by chasing it.
Who it is for
For those who live in a rush, lose their temper over small things and want a calm that does not fall apart in a hard hour.
Haste always pays the highest price for everything, and the goods usually never get delivered.
Neither a Stone nor a Wood Chip
Imagine a day when everything slips out of your hands. In the morning a letter arrives with a reproach, then the bus is late, then an argument breaks out at work. By evening it feels as if you are being tossed about by the waves, like a boat. And many people think that on such a day calm is possible in only two ways: to turn to stone and feel nothing, or to wave everything away and stop caring.
The American essayist William George Jordan rejects both paths. The stone Sphinx, he writes, is by no means a model of calm: a petrified state means that all the forces in a person have fallen silent. The fatalist is not calm either. He has given up to circumstances and drifts through time like a ship without a rudder, without a chart and without a port of destination.
A calm person, in Jordan's view, is like a helmsman. His course is plotted on the chart, and his hand rests on the wheel. He cannot cancel the storm, the fog or the hidden reefs, but he knows that in each of them he will need a clear head. Sometimes he has to go onto another tack and leave his course for a while, but he will not drift.
The book is made up of seven short essays: on calm, on haste, on the unconscious influence we have on others, on relying on yourself, on failure, on the habit of doing your best and on happiness. Jordan wrote them more than a century ago, in the language of a preacher and with faith as his support. But his question is entirely of today: where does calm come from that does not break in a hard hour? His answer is surprisingly ordinary, and the first chapter begins with it.
The Storm Does Not Reach the Depths
Jordan takes his image from the ocean. A storm stirs only the surface of the sea: the agitation goes down two or three hundred feet, and below lies a quiet, undisturbed depth. Calm, in his view, works the same way: it comes from within, from where outside waves cannot reach. But the road to that depth has to be laid in advance. People prepare for great trials on ordinary days.
His advice for an ordinary day is very concrete. When small worries start to chafe, like tight shoes, stop for a minute. If you let irritations take over, Jordan writes, you admit that they are stronger than you. So take them apart one at a time: each annoyance separately, with all your willpower. Then the annoyances melt away one after another, like morning mist under the sun.
Why train on small things? Because calm accumulates. Jordan describes an hour when, in a single moment, the work of a whole life collapses. A person who has spent years learning to keep a clear head can look at the ashes of his hopes without panic and say: “So be it. I will build again.” And when death takes the person closest to you, the calm built up over many years becomes, in his words, a refuge and a store of strength.
The second trial concerns resentment. When you have been slandered and want revenge, Jordan suggests recalling the heron chased by an eagle. In his story the heron does not flee but calmly stands and waits, and the eagle, diving on it at full speed, impales itself on its beak, sharp as a spear. This is more a parable of his time than an observation by a naturalist, but the idea is clear: whoever tries to destroy another person's reputation ruins his own.
Jordan does not, however, call anyone to shut themselves off from the world. A calm person takes a lively interest in other people's troubles, and he withdraws into his quiet only to gather strength and return to people.
About the author
William George Jordan (1864-1928) was an American essayist, editor and lecturer. He wrote “The Kingship of Self-Control” and short essays on character that have been reprinted for more than a century.
All books by this author: William George Jordan
Terms from the book
- Darwin
- Malthus
- feet
- tack
- Godwin
- missionary
- Cato
- Bismarck
- Sphinx: A mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. The best-known stone statue of the Sphinx stands by the pyramids at Giza, in Egypt. For Jordan it is an image of petrified, lifeless calm.
- fatalist: A person who believes that everything is predestined and therefore tries to change nothing.
- Tower of Babel: A tower from the biblical story (Book of Genesis) that people wanted to build up to the sky. Construction fell apart when the builders stopped understanding one another.
- Gulf Stream: A warm ocean current in the Atlantic. It carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of Europe.
- Joggins: This is how Jordan names the man behind the scheme of a huge raft of logs that was towed from Canada to New York.
- Hydrographic Office: The agency that studies the seas and draws nautical charts. In Jordan's account it is the office in Washington.
- Livingstone: David Livingstone (1813-1873), Scottish missionary, doctor and traveler, one of the best-known explorers of Africa.
- Opium War: The war of Great Britain with China in 1839-1842. It began over China's bans on the import of opium by British traders.
- Booth: Edwin Booth (1833-1893), one of the most famous American actors of the 19th century, known for his role as Hamlet.
- Morrell: Daniel Morrell, an American industrialist. For a time he was president of the Cambria Rail Works, a rail plant where seven thousand people worked.
- Hobbes: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), English philosopher, author of “Leviathan”. In extreme old age he translated Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into English.
All terms
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