Success (Second Edition)

ealth, Industry, and Judgment, stands another temple. Behind

ll produce variations of the blessing. A man may make a failure in his affairs and yet remain happy. The spiritual and inner life is

t so. He may have access to the first temple, but the other temple may still be forbidden him. A rampant ambition can be a torture to him. An exaggerated selfishness can make his life miserable, or an uneasy conscience may join with the s

the rather crude dictum that "Honesty is the best policy"-which is often interpreted to mean that it is a mistake to go to gaol. But real justice must go far beyond a mere fear of the law, or even a realisation that it does not pay to in

ns of his rivals, enemies, or neighbours. The real judges of a man's character are his colleagues. If they speak well of him, there is nothing much wrong. The failure, on the other hand, can always be sure of being popular with the men who have beaten him. They give him a testimonial instead of a cheque. It would be too curious a speculation

o be acquired. But the man of success and affairs ought to be the last person to complain of the difficulty of acquiring it. He has in his early days felt the whip-hand too often not to sympathise with the feelings of the under-dog. And he always knows that at some time in his career he, too, may need a merciful interpretation of a financial situation. Shakespeare may not have had this in his mind when he said that mercy "blesseth him that gives and him that takes"; but he is none the less right. Those who exerci

is a feeling of tenderness springing out of harsh experience, as a flower springs out of a rock. It is an inner sense of gratitu

seems to invite in the completed form a temperament of arrogance. I cannot pretend to be humble myself; all I can confess is the knowledge that in so far as I could acquire humility I should be happier. Indeed, many instances prove that success and humility are not incom

the younger men who are planting their feet in their own footsteps. The established arrogance which refuses credit or opportunity to rising talent is unpardona

ral cowardice and courage into arrogance? Some men in history have had this problem solved for them. Stonewall Jackson is a type of the man of supreme courage and action and judgment

at he will reap no material reward, but an immense harvest of inner well-being. He will have found the blue bird of happiness which escapes so easily from the snare. H