REAL SUCCESS
[Sidenote: Resolve to cultivate a cheerful spirit, a smiling
countenance, and a soothing voice. The sweet smile, the subdued speech,
the hopeful mind, are earth's most potent conquerors, and he who
cultivates them becomes a very master among men.--HUBBARD.]
"Boy Wanted"
Are you the boy?
If you have carefully read and digested the foregoing chapters you have
a pretty clear understanding of the sort of boy the world prefers for a
life partner. You have learned that you must
Ask no favors of "luck,"--win your way like a man;
Be active and earnest and plucky;
Then your work will come out just about as you plan
And the world will exclaim, "Oh, how lucky!"
[Sidenote: They also serve who only stand and wait.--MILTON.]
In studying the history of the lives of successful men we are
constantly being impressed with the thought that they make the most out
of their surroundings, whatever their surroundings may be. They do not
wait for a good chance to succeed; they take such chances as they can
get and make them good. We very soon learn that
[Sidenote: Two things fill me with awe: the starry heavens above, and
the moral sense within.--KANT.]
The ones who shall win are the ones who will toil;
The future is all in our keeping;
Though fortune may give us the seed and the soil,
We must still do the sowing and reaping.
[Sidenote: The realities of to-day surpass the ideals of
yesterday.--FROTHINGHAM.]
[Sidenote: The person who considers everything will never decide on
anything.--ITALIAN.]
We learn, also, that one may achieve a full measure of success without
accumulating much money, and may accumulate much money without
achieving success. "Mere wealth is no more success than fools' gold is
real gold," says one of our wise essayists. "Collaterals do not take
the place of character. A man obtains thousands or millions of dollars
by legal or illegal thieving, and society, instead of sending him to
prison, receives him in its parlors. Men bow low when he passes, as in
the fable the people bowed to the golden idols that were strapped on
the back of a donkey, who was ass enough to swell with pride in the
thought that all this reverence was for him. The man who puts his trust
in gold and deposits his heart in the bank, and thinks money means
success, is like the starving traveler in the desert, who, seeing a bag
in the distance, found in it, instead of food which he sought, nothing
but gold, and flung it from him in disappointment, and died for want of
something that could save his life. The soul will starve if gold alone
administers to its needs. Better to be a man than merely a millionaire.
Better to have a head and heart than merely houses and lands."
[Sidenote: Nobody can carry three watermelons under one arm.--SPANISH.]
It is along such lines of thinking that I offer these thoughts
ON GETTING RICH
[Sidenote: When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe
them.--PLATO.]
Get riches, my boy! Grow as rich as you can;
'Tis the laudable aim of each diligent man
Of life's many blessings his share to secure,
Nor go through this world ill-conditioned and poor.
Get riches, my boy! Ah, but hearken you, mind!
Get riches, but those of the genuine kind.
Get riches,--not dollars and acres unless
You thoughtfully use them to brighten and bless.
[Sidenote: The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old
highway of steadfast well-being and well-doing, and they who are
the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably
be the most successful; success treads on the heels of every right
effort.--SAMUEL SMILES.]
Get riches, not such as with money are bought,
But those that with love and high thinking are wrought;
Get rubies of righteousness, jewels of grace,
Whose brightness Time's passing shall never efface.
Get riches! Do not, as the foolish will do,
In getting your money let money get you
To steal life's high purpose from heart and from head
And prison the soul in a pocket instead.
Get riches! Get gold that is pure and refined;
Get light from above; get the love of mankind;
Get gladness through all of life's journey; and then
Get heaven, forever and ever. _Amen._
[Sidenote: He overcomes a stout enemy who overcomes his own
anger.--GREEK.]
The wide-awake boy will see the advantage of carrying in his thought
these words of Lavater: "He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks,
calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say is
in possession of some of the best requisites of man."
[Sidenote: Stones and sticks are flung only at fruit-bearing
trees.--PERSIAN.]
The man of words and not of thoughts
Is like a great long row of naughts.
"There is a gift beyond the reach of art, of being eloquently silent,"
says Bovee, and Caroline Fox tells us that "the silence which precedes
words is so much grander than the grandest words because in it are
created those thoughts of which words are the mere outward clothing."
To speak to no purpose is as idle as the clanging of tinkling cymbals.
[Sidenote: Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest
employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the
consciousness that he has done his best.--SYDNEY SMITH.]
A thoughtful man will never set
His tongue a-going and forget
To stop it when his brain has quit
A-thinking thoughts to offer it.
"If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once," says Penn, "thou
wilt speak twice the better for it."
It is this matter of thinking, of considering, of weighing one's words
and deeds that compels the moments, the days and the years to bring the
success that some mistakenly think is only a matter of chance.
[Sidenote: It is an uncontroverted truth that no man ever made an ill
figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook
them.--SWIFT.]
It is this habit of careful thinking that is going to make you remember
that you owe it not only to yourself to make your life the truest
success you can, but you owe it to your family, your friends, your
enemies--if such you have--to the whole world with which you are in
partnership, and to the stars above you.
[Sidenote: The great successes of the world have been affairs of a
second, a third, nay, a fiftieth trial.--JOHN MORLEY.]
But above all others there is one who, either in spirit or in her
living presence, must ever and always be near to you, and for whose
sake you will--God helping you!--stand up in your boots and be a man!
THE MOTHER'S DREAM
[Sidenote: Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed;
be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than
nothing.--SYDNEY SMITH.]
Boy, your mother's dreaming; there's a picture pure and bright
That gladdens all her gracious tasks at morning, noon and night;
A picture where is blended all the beauty born of hope,
A view that takes the whole of life within its loving scope.
[Sidenote: Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it
may be.--PYTHAGORAS.]
She's dreaming, fondly dreaming, of the happy future when
Her boy shall stand the equal of his grandest fellow men
Her boy, whose heart with goodness she has labored to imbue,
Shall be, in her declining years, her lover proud and true.
[Sidenote: Courage consists, not in blindly overlooking danger, but in
meeting it with the eyes open.--JEAN PAUL RICHTER.]
She's growing old; her cheeks have lost the blush and bloom of
spring,
But oh! her heart is proud because her son shall be a king;
Shall be a king of noble deeds, with goodness crowned, and own
The hearts of all his fellow men, and she shall share his throne.
Boy, your mother's dreaming; there's a picture pure and bright
That gladdens all her gracious tasks at morning, noon and night;
A view that takes the whole of life within its loving scope;
O Boy, beware! you must not mar that mother's dream and hope.
Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible. Some minor corrections of spelling and puctuation have
been made.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.