CHAPTER XXI.

TRUE AND FALSE SUCCESS.

We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with those parts. Our simple duty is confined to playing them well. — EPICTETUS.

I confess that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those words are commonly used. — G. S. HILLARD.

To know

That which before us lies in daily life

Is the prime wisdom. - MILTON.

The heart of a man is a short word, a small substance, scarce enough to give a kite a meal; yet great in capacity, yea, so indefinite in desire that the round globe of the world cannot fill the three corners of it! When it desires more, and cries, Give, give!" I will set it over to the infinite good, where the more it hath it may desire more, and see more to be desired. BISHOP HALL.

O, keep me innocent! make others great. of Denmark.

QUEEN CAROLINE MATILDA,

The world will be blind, indeed, if it does not reckon amongst its great ones such martyrs as miss the palm but not the pains of martyrdom, heroes without the laurels, and conquerors without the jubilation of triumph. — J. H. FRISWELL, The Gentle Life.

IN

N the preceding chapters we have endeavored to furnish the beginner in life with some useful directions touching the art of "getting on in the world," illustrating our hints by examples of men who have succeeded and of men who have failed. In conclusion, it should be remembered that success in life is to be regarded as a means, and not as an end; and that therefore there is such a thing possible as unsuccessful success, such a thing as gaining every end, while the whole life has been a failure. For what is this success, to which we have been trying to point out the path? Viewed in the light of another world, of that measureless existence compared with which this earthly one is but a point, — what is it, after all,

but a comparatively vulgar, paltry affair? Is it anything for which a man should crawl in the dust, degrade himself in his own estimation, do violence to the divine principle within him, or stoop to the smallest mean or dishonorable action? Is life a scrub-race, where, at every hazard, though you have to blind the man on your right and trip the one on your left, you must struggle to come out ahead? Shall we subscribe to that dangerous materialism running throughout American life, which preaches that money is the great end and evidence of the possession of intellect, that a man must be a failure unless he culminates in the possession of a check-book, a belief worthy only of a people prepared to accept "Poor Richard's" maxims as a New Testament? Were we sent into the world simply, in the slang phrase of the day, "to win a pile"? And when we have a competence, shall we sacrifice health, peace, conscience, that we may boast of our hundreds of thousands, though we know that incessant fear and nervous anxiety are often the shadows that surround the glittering heap? Is it nothing to have a conscience void of offence, a face that never turns pale at the accuser's voice, a bosom that never throbs at the fear of exposure, a heart that might be turned inside out and discover no stain of dishonor?

But perhaps you regard popularity as the great test of success; you covet the digito pretereuntium monstrari; you would be the focus of all eyes, "the observed of all observers," though of that kind of honor, as Cowley says, "every mountebank has more than the best doctor, and the hangman more than the lord chief justice of a city." Then you live a life only in others' breath; your happiness depends on every turn of the weathercock; you are at the mercy of every wind that blows. Are you the lion of to-day, because you have burned the heart of the world with your ardent soul? I am the lion to-morrow, because I balance myself on a wire over the dizzy chasm of Niagara, and you are quite forgotten. The confounding of excellence with pecuniary success or a seat in Congress is both absurd and immoral. Was the divinest life

ever led on this earth a success, humanly speaking? And are you entitled to pronounce your fellow-man, who has humbly tried to copy it, a cipher, because he has not, like you, courted applause, and made some little nook or corner of the earth ring with his name? Has not many a man been a blessing to the world who has made no noise in it, and who has died a beggar? And have not thousands died rich in goods or reputation, who were intellectually and morally bankrupt? it not too true of the road of ambition, that, as another has said, "the higher it ascends the more difficult it becomes, till at last it terminates in some elevation too narrow for friendship, too steep for safety, too sharp for repose, and where the occupant, above the sympathy of man and below the friendship of angels, resembles in the solitude if not the depth of his sufferings a Prometheus chained to the Caucasian rock"? Whatever you will pay the price for, you can have in this world, that is the rule. Be rich or popular, if you choose,bringing all your faculties, as did Bonaparte his forces, to bear upon one point, and letting your intellectual and moral nature lie fallow. But do not arrogate too much on the strength of this vulgar success; do not expect admiration and applause, or even a tacit assent to your claims, from those who are accustomed to look below the surface. Do not deem yourself authorized to pity those who prefer incorruptible treasures to a balance at their banker's, the "pearl of great price" to the jewel that sparkles on the finger, and who have been successful as men, though they may have failed as lawyers, doctors, and merchants. The possession of 5-20 bonds, and mortgages, and corner lots does not always and necessarily reward virtuous industry; "a play, a book, a great work, an architect, or a general, may owe success simply to the bad taste of the times; and, again, nonsuccess in any candidate may arise from a conscience too clear and sensitive, a taste too good and too nice, a judgment too discriminative, a generosity too romantic and noble, or a modesty too retiring." There is no possible valuation of human character which would make the slightest show in the stock

list; and hence success, truly understood, must be sought, not in what we have, but in what we are.

All experience shows that the greatest and most continued favors of fortune cannot, of themselves, make a man happy, nor can the deprivation of them render altogether miserable the possessor of a clear conscience and a well-regulated mind. Goethe, who seems to have been born to show how little genius, health, honor, influence, and worldly goods can do to make a man happy, confessed that he had not, in the course of his life, enjoyed five weeks of genuine pleasure; and a famous caliph, looking back over a brilliant reign of fifty years, found that he had enjoyed only fourteen days of pure and unalloyed happiness. An ingenious Frenchman has even written an able book to prove that no change in any man's external circumstances, bating the case of absolute indigence, can alter a man's essential feelings of comfort and happiness. for more than three months. Such cynicism, which, if universal, would put a sudden stop to all the wheels of the world's industry, can have but few converts; men will still continue, in spite of all the croakings of moralists, to crave and toil and struggle for the world's prizes; and it must be confessed that, in spite of all drawbacks, success, even in this vulgar sense, is a desirable thing. Money, and a pleasant home, and freedom from economical cares, books and pictures, travel in foreign lands, the society of cultivated and elegant men and women, the respect of the world, and the best viands, are all solid advantages, which none covet more than those who affect to despise them. Life is certainly a journey and a pilgrimage, but "if it were only a journey of a single night, travelling first-class would be incomparably more comfortable than travelling third." It is therefore a great saying that "heaven is probably a place for those who have failed on earth,” — for the "Delicate spirits, pushed away

In the hot press of the noonday."

Do you ask, then, what you shall aim at in life? We answer, as we began: Aim to act well your part, for therein lies

all the honor. Every man has a mission to perform in this world, for which his talents precisely fit him, and, having found what this mission is, he must throw into it all the energies of his soul, seeking its accomplishment, not his own glory. As Goethe wisely says: "Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do, and to restrain himself within the limits of his power of comprehension." Having found out what you have to do, whether to lead an army or to sweep a crossing, to keep a hotel or to drive a hack, to harangue senates or address juries or prescribe medicines, — do it with all your might, because it is your duty, your enjoyment, or the very necessity of your being.

Are your intellectual endowments small, and do you despond because your progress must be slow? Remember that, if you have but one talent, you are responsible only for its wise employment. If you cannot do all you wish, you can at least do your best; and, as Dr. Arnold says, if there be one thing on earth which is truly admirable, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when they have been honestly, truly, and zealously cultivated. Remembering that the battle of life cannot be fought by proxy, be your own helper, be earnest, be watchful, be diligent, and, if you do not win success, you will have done the next best thing, you will have

deserved it.

Is your calling one which the world calls mean or humble? Strive to ennoble it by mixing brains with it, as Opie did with his colors. Show by the spirit that you carry into it, that to one who has self-respect, an exalted soul, the most despised profession may be made honorable; that, as we have already said, it is the heart, the inspiring motive, not the calling, that degrades; that the mechanic may be as high-minded as the poet, the day-laborer as noble as the artist. It is related of the celebrated Boston merchant, William Gray, that having, on a certain occasion, censured a mechanic for some slovenly work, the latter, who had known Mr. Gray when he was in a very