among the young people of the town that were lovers of reading, with
whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; _and gained money by my
industry and frugality_." Or again: "It was about this time I
conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral
perfection.... I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for
each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have
seven columns, one for each day of the week.... I crossed these
columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line
with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its
proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I
found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue,
upon that day." Shade of Franklin, where'er thou art, this is really a
little bit stiff! A man may be excused even such infamies of
priggishness, but truly he ought not to go and write them down,
especially to his son. And why the detail about red ink? If Franklin's
son was not driven to evil courses by the perusal of that monstrous
Autobiography, he must have been a man almost as astounding as his
father. Now Franklin could only have written his "immortal classic"
from one of three motives: (1) Sheer conceit. He was a prig, but he
was not conceited. (2) A desire that others should profit by his
mistakes. He never made any mistakes. Now and again he emphasizes some
trifling error, but that is "only his fun." (3) A desire that others
should profit by the recital of his virtuous sagacity to reach a
similar success. The last was undoubtedly his principal motive. Honest
fellow, who happened to be a genius! But the point is that his success
was in no way the result of his virtuous sagacity. I would go further,
and say that his dreadful virtuous sagacity often hindered his
success.
No one is a worse guide to success than your typical successful man. He
seldom understands the reasons of his own success; and when he is asked
by a popular magazine to give his experiences for the benefit of the
youth of a whole nation, it is impossible for him to be natural and
sincere. He knows the kind of thing that is expected from him, and if
he didn't come to London with half a crown in his pocket he probably
did something equally silly, and he puts _that_ down, and the note of
the article or interview is struck, and good-bye to genuine truth!
There recently appeared in a daily paper an autobiographic-didactic
article by one of the world's richest men which was the most
"inadequate" article of the sort that I have ever come across.
Successful men forget so much of their lives! Moreover, nothing is
easier than to explain an accomplished fact in a nice, agreeable,
conventional way. The entire business of success is a gigantic tacit
conspiracy on the part of the minority to deceive the majority.
Are successful men more industrious, frugal, and intelligent than men
who are not successful? I maintain that they are not, and I have
studied successful men at close quarters. One of the commonest
characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense
capacity for wasting time. I stoutly assert that as a rule successful
men are by habit comparatively idle. As for frugality, it is
practically unknown among the successful classes: this statement
applies with particular force to financiers. As for intelligence, I
have over and over again been startled by the lack of intelligence in
successful men. They are, indeed, capable of stupidities that would be
the ruin of a plain clerk. And much of the talk in those circles which
surround the successful man is devoted to the enumeration of instances
of his lack of intelligence. Another point: successful men seldom
succeed as the result of an ordered arrangement of their lives; they
are the least methodical of creatures. Naturally when they have
"arrived" they amuse themselves and impress the majority by being
convinced that right from the start, with a steady eye on the goal,
they had carefully planned every foot of the route.
No! Great success never depends on the practice of the humbler
virtues, though it may occasionally depend on the practice of the
prouder vices. Use industry, frugality, and common sense by all
means, but do not expect that they will help you to success. Because
they will not. I shall no doubt be told that what I have just written
has an immoral tendency, and is a direct encouragement to sloth,
thriftlessness, etc. One of our chief national faults is our
hypocritical desire to suppress the truth on the pretext that to admit
it would encourage sin, whereas the real explanation is that we are
afraid of the truth. I will not be guilty of that fault. I do like to
look a fact in the face without blinking. I am fully persuaded that,
per head, there is more of the virtues in the unsuccessful majority
than in the successful minority. In London alone are there not
hundreds of miles of streets crammed with industry, frugality, and
prudence? Some of the most brilliant men I have known have been
failures, and not through lack of character either. And some of the
least gifted have been marvellously successful. It is impossible to
point to a single branch of human activity in which success can be
explained by the conventional principles that find general acceptance.
I hear you, O reader, murmuring to yourself: "This is all very well,
but he is simply being paradoxical for his own diversion." I would
that I could persuade you of my intense seriousness! I have
endeavoured to show what does not make success. I will next endeavour
to show what does make it. But my hope is forlorn.
THE INWARDNESS OF SUCCESS
Of course, one can no more explain success than one can explain
Beethoven's C minor symphony. One may state what key it is written in,
and make expert reflections upon its form, and catalogue its themes,
and relate it to symphonies that preceded it and symphonies that
followed it, but in the end one is reduced to saying that the C minor
symphony is beautiful--because it is. In the same manner one is
reduced to saying that the sole real difference between success and
failure is that success succeeds. This being frankly admitted at the
outset, I will allow myself to assert that there are three sorts of
success. Success A is the accidental sort. It is due to the thing we
call chance, and to nothing else. We are all of us still very
superstitious, and the caprices of chance have a singular effect upon
us. Suppose that I go to Monte Carlo and announce to a friend my firm
conviction that red will turn up next time, and I back red for the
maximum and red does turn up; my friend, in spite of his intellect,
will vaguely attribute to me a mysterious power. Yet chance alone
would be responsible. If I did that six times running all the players
at the table would be interested in me. If I did it a dozen times all
the players in the Casino would regard me with awe. Yet chance alone
would be responsible. If I did it eighteen times my name would be in
every newspaper in Europe. Yet chance alone would be responsible. I
should be, in that department of human activity, an extremely
successful man, and the vast majority of people would instinctively
credit me with gifts that I do not possess.
If such phenomena of superstition can occur in an affair where the
agency of chance is open and avowed, how much more probable is it that
people should refuse to be satisfied with the explanation of "sheer
accident" in affairs where it is to the interest of the principal
actors to conceal the role played by chance! Nevertheless, there can
be no doubt in the minds of persons who have viewed success at close
quarters that a proportion of it is due solely and utterly to chance.
Successful men flourish to-day, and have flourished in the past, who
have no quality whatever to differentiate them from the multitude. Red
has turned up for them a sufficient number of times, and the universal
superstitious instinct not to believe in chance has accordingly
surrounded them with a halo. It is merely ridiculous to say, as some
do say, that success is never due to chance alone. Because nearly
everybody is personally acquainted with reasonable proof, on a great
or a small scale, to the contrary.
The second sort of success, B, is that made by men who, while not
gifted with first-class talents, have, beyond doubt, the talent to
succeed. I should describe these men by saying that, though they
deserve something, they do not deserve the dazzling reward known as
success. They strike us as overpaid. We meet them in all professions
and trades, and we do not really respect them. They excite our
curiosity, and perhaps our envy. They may rise very high indeed, but
they must always be unpleasantly conscious of a serious reservation in
our attitude towards them. And if they could read their obituary
notices they would assuredly discern therein a certain chilliness,
however kindly we acted up to our great national motto of _De mortuis
nil nist bunkum_. It is this class of success which puzzles the social
student. How comes it that men without any other talent possess a
mysterious and indefinable talent to succeed? Well, it seems to me
that such men always display certain characteristics. And the chief of
these characteristics is the continual, insatiable _wish_ to succeed.
They are preoccupied with the idea of succeeding. We others are not so
preoccupied. We dream of success at intervals, but we have not the
passion for success. We don't lie awake at nights pondering upon it.
The second characteristic of these men springs naturally from the
first. They are always on the look-out. This does not mean that they
are industrious. I stated in a previous article my belief that as a
rule successful men are not particularly industrious. A man on a raft
with his shirt for a signal cannot be termed industrious, but he will
keep his eyes open for a sail on the horizon. If he simply lies down
and goes to sleep he may miss the chance of his life, in a very
special sense. The man with the talent to succeed is the man on the
raft who never goes to sleep. His indefatigable orb sweeps the main
from sunset to sunset. Having sighted a sail, he gets up on his hind
legs and waves that shirt in so determined a manner that the ship is
bound to see him and take him off. Occasionally he plunges into the
sea, risking sharks and other perils. If he doesn't "get there," we
hear nothing of him. If he does, some person will ultimately multiply
by ten the number of sharks that he braved: that person is called a
biographer.
Let me drop the metaphor. Another characteristic of these men is that
they seem to have the exact contrary of what is known as common sense.
They will become enamoured of some enterprise which infallibly
impresses the average common-sense person as a mad and hopeless
enterprise. The average common-sense person will demolish the hopes of
that enterprise by incontrovertible argument. He will point out that
it is foolish on the face of it, that it has never been attempted
before, and that it responds to no need of humanity. He will say to
himself: "This fellow with his precious enterprise has a twist in his
brain. He can't reply to my arguments, and yet he obstinately persists
in going on." And the man destined to success does go on. Perhaps the
enterprise fails; it often fails; and then the average common-sense
person expends much breath in "I told you so's." But the man continues
to be on the look-out. His thirst is unassuaged; his taste for
enterprises foredoomed to failure is incurable. And one day some
enterprise foredoomed to failure develops into a success. We all hear
of it. We all open our mouths and gape. Of the failures we have heard
nothing. Once the man has achieved success, the thing becomes a habit
with him. The difference between a success and a failure is often so
slight that a reputation for succeeding will ensure success, and a
reputation for failing will ensure failure. Chance plays an important
part in such careers, but not a paramount part. One can only say that
it is more useful to have luck at the beginning than later on. These
"men of success" generally have pliable temperaments. They are not
frequently un-moral, but they regard a conscience as a good servant
and a bad master. They live in an atmosphere of compromise.
There remains class C of success--the class of sheer high merit. I am
not a pessimist, nor am I an optimist. I try to arrive at the truth,
and I should say that in putting success C at ten per cent. of the sum
total of all successes, I am being generous to class C. Not that I
believe that vast quantities of merit go unappreciated. My reason for
giving to Class C only a modest share is the fact that there is so
little sheer high merit. And does it not stand to reason that high
merit must be very exceptional? This sort of success needs no
explanation, no accounting for. It is the justification of our
singular belief in the principle of the triumph of justice, and it is
among natural phenomena perhaps the only justification that can be
advanced for that belief. And certainly when we behold the spectacle
of genuine distinguished merit gaining, without undue delay and
without the sacrifice of dignity or of conscience, the applause of the
kind-hearted but obtuse and insensible majority of the human race, we
have fair reason to hug ourselves.
VIII
THE PETTY ARTIFICIALITIES
The phrase "petty artificialities," employed by one of the
correspondents in the great Simple Life argument, has stuck in my
mind, although I gave it a plain intimation that it was no longer
wanted there. Perhaps it sheds more light than I had at first imagined
on the mental state of the persons who use it when they wish to
arraign the conditions of "modern life." A vituperative epithet is
capable of making a big show. "Artificialities" is a sufficiently
scornful word, but when you add "petty" you somehow give the quietus
to the pretensions of modern life. Modern life had better hide its
diminished head, after that. Modern life is settled and done for--in
the opinion of those who have thrown the dart. Only it isn't done for,
really, you know. "Petty," after all, means nothing in that connexion.
Are there, then, artificialities which are not "petty," which are
noble, large, and grand? "Petty" means merely that the users of the
word are just a little cross and out of temper. What they think they
object to is artificialities of any kind, and so to get rid of their
spleen they refer to "petty" artificialities. The device is a common
one, and as brilliant as it is futile. Rude adjectives are like blank
cartridge. They impress a vain people, including the birds of the air,
but they do no execution.
At the same time, let me admit that I deeply sympathize with the
irritated users of the impolite phrase "petty artificialities." For it
does at any rate show a "divine discontent"; it does prove a high
dissatisfaction with conditions which at best are not the final
expression of the eternal purpose. It does make for a sort of crude
and churlish righteousness. I well know that feeling which induces one
to spit out savagely the phrase "petty artificialities of modern
life." One has it usually either on getting up or on going to bed.
What a petty artificial business it is, getting up, even for a male!
Shaving! Why shave? And then going to a drawer and choosing a necktie.
Fancy an immortal soul, fancy a fragment of the eternal and
indestructible energy, which exists from everlasting to everlasting,
deliberately expending its activity on the choice of a necktie! Why a
necktie? Then one goes downstairs and exchanges banal phrases with
other immortals. And one can't start breakfast immediately, because
some sleepy mortal is late.
Why babble? Why wait? Why not say straight out: "Go to the deuce, all
of you! Here it's nearly ten o'clock, and me anxious to begin living
the higher life at once instead of fiddling around in petty
artificialities. Shut up, every one of you. Give me my bacon
instantly, and let me gobble it down quick and be off. I'm sick of
your ceremonies!" This would at any rate not be artificial. It would
save time. And if a similar policy were strictly applied through the
day, one could retire to a well-earned repose in the full assurance
that the day had been simplified. The time for living the higher life,
the time for pushing forward those vast schemes of self-improvement
which we all cherish, would decidedly have been increased. One would
not have that maddening feeling, which one so frequently does have
when the shades of night are falling fast, that the day had been
"frittered away." And yet--and yet--I gravely doubt whether this
wholesale massacre of those poor petty artificialities would bring us
appreciably nearer the millennium.
For there is one thing, and a thing of fundamental importance, which
the revolutionists against petty artificialities always fail to
appreciate, and that is the necessity and the value of convention. I
cannot in a paragraph deal effectively with this most difficult and
complex question. I can only point the reader to analogous phenomena
in the arts. All the arts are a conventionalization, an ordering of
nature. Even in a garden you put the plants in rows, and you
subordinate the well-being of one to the general well-being. The sole
difference between a garden and the wild woods is a petty
artificiality. In writing a sonnet you actually cramp the profoundest
emotional conceptions into a length and a number of lines and a
jingling of like sounds arbitrarily fixed beforehand! Wordsworth's
"The world is too much with us" is a solid, horrid mass of petty
artificiality. Why couldn't the fellow say what he meant and have
done with it, instead of making "powers" rhyme with "ours," and
worrying himself to use exactly a hundred and forty syllables? As for
music, the amount of time that must have been devoted to petty
artificiality in the construction of an affair like Bach's Chaconne is
simply staggering. Then look at pictures, absurdly confined in frames,
with their ingenious contrasts of light and shade and mass against
mass. Nothing but petty artificiality! In other words, nothing but
"form"--"form" which is the basis of all beauty, whether material or
otherwise.
Now, what form is in art, conventions (petty artificialities) are in
life. Just as you can have too much form in art, so you can have too
much convention in life. But no art that is not planned in form is
worth consideration, and no life that is not planned in convention can
ever be satisfactory. Convention is not the essence of life, but it is
the protecting garment and preservative of life, and it is also one
very valuable means by which life can express itself. It is largely
symbolic; and symbols, while being expressive, are also great
time-savers. The despisers of petty artificialities should think of
this. Take the striking instance of that pettiest artificiality,
leaving cards. Well, searchers after the real, what would you
substitute for it? If you dropped it and substituted nothing, the
result would tend towards a loosening of the bonds of society, and it
would tend towards the diminution of the number of your friends. And
if you dropped it and tried to substitute something less artificial
and more real, you would accomplish no more than you accomplish with
cards, you would inconvenience everybody, and waste a good deal of
your own time. I cannot too strongly insist that the basis of
convention is a symbolism, primarily meant to display a regard for the
feelings of other people. If you do not display a regard for the
feelings of other people, you may as well go and live on herbs in the
desert. And if you are to display such a regard you cannot do it more
expeditiously, at a smaller outlay of time and brains, than by
adopting the code of convention now generally practised. It comes to
this--that you cannot have all the advantages of living in the desert
while you are living in a society. It would be delightful for you if
you could, but you can't.
There are two further reasons for the continuance of conventionality.
And one is the mysterious but indisputable fact that the full beauty
of an activity is never brought out until it is subjected to
discipline and strict ordering and nice balancing. A life without
petty artificiality would be the life of a tiger in the forest. A
beautiful life, perhaps, a life of "burning bright," but not reaching
the highest ideal of beauty! Laws and rules, forms and ceremonies are
good in themselves, from a merely aesthetic point of view, apart from
their social value and necessity.
And the other reason is that one cannot always be at the full strain
of "self-improvement," and "evolutionary progress," and generally
beating the big drum. Human nature will not stand it. There is, if we
will only be patient, ample time for the "artificial" as well as for
the "real." Those persons who think that there isn't, ought to return
to school and learn arithmetic. Supposing that all "petty
artificialities" were suddenly swept away, and we were able to show
our regard and consideration for our fellow creatures by the swift
processes of thought alone, we should find ourselves with a terrible
lot of time hanging heavy on our hands. We can no more spend all our
waking hours in consciously striving towards higher things than we can
dine exclusively off jam. What frightful prigs we should become if we
had nothing to do but cultivate our noblest faculties! I beg the
despisers of artificiality to reflect upon these observations, however
incomplete these observations may be, and to consider whether they
would be quite content if they got what they are crying out for.
IX
THE SECRET OF CONTENT
I have said lightly a propos of the conclusion arrived at by several
correspondents and by myself that the cry for the simple life was
merely a new form of the old cry for happiness, that I would explain
what it was that made life worth living for me. The word has gone
forth, and I must endeavour to redeem my promise. But I do so with
qualms and with diffidence. First, there is the natural instinct
against speaking of that which is in the core of one's mind. Second,
there is the fear, nearly amounting to certainty, of being
misunderstood or not comprehended at all. And third, there is the
absurd insufficiency of space. However!... For me, spiritual content
(I will not use the word "happiness," which implies too much) springs
essentially from no mental or physical facts. It springs from the
spiritual fact that there is something higher in man than the mind,
and that that something can control the mind. Call that something the
soul, or what you will. My sense of security amid the collisions of
existence lies in the firm consciousness that just as my body is the
servant of my mind, so is my mind the servant of _me_. An unruly
servant, but a servant--and possibly getting less unruly every day!
Often have I said to that restive brain: "Now, O mind, sole means of
communication between the divine _me_ and all external phenomena, you
are not a free agent; you are a subordinate; you are nothing but a
piece of machinery; and obey me you _shall_."
The mind can only be conquered by regular meditation, by deciding
beforehand what direction its activity ought to take, and insisting
that its activity takes that direction; also by never leaving it idle,
undirected, masterless, to play at random like a child in the streets
after dark. This is extremely difficult, but it can be done, and it is
marvellously well worth doing. The fault of the epoch is the absence
of meditativeness. A sagacious man will strive to correct in himself
the faults of his epoch. In some deep ways the twelfth century had
advantages over the twentieth. It practised meditation. The twentieth
does Sandow exercises. Meditation (I speak only for myself) is the
least dispensable of the day's doings. What do I force my mind to
meditate upon? Upon various things, but chiefly upon one.
Namely, that Force, Energy, Life--the Incomprehensible has many
names--is indestructible, and that, in the last analysis, there is
only one single, unique Force, Energy, Life. Science is gradually
reducing all elements to one element. Science is making it
increasingly difficult to conceive matter apart from spirit.
Everything lives. Even my razor gets "tired." And the fatigue of my
razor is no more nor less explicable than my fatigue after a passage
of arms with my mind. The Force in it, and in me, has been
transformed, not lost. All Force is the same force. Science just now
has a tendency to call it electricity; but I am indifferent to such
baptisms. The same Force pervades my razor, my cow in my field, and
the central _me_ which dominates my mind: the same force in different
stages of evolution. And that Force persists forever. In such paths
do I compel my mind to walk daily. Daily it has to recognize that the
mysterious Ego controlling it is a part of that divine Force which
exists from everlasting to everlasting, and which, in its ultimate
atoms, nothing can harm. By such a course of training, even the mind,
the coarse, practical mind, at last perceives that worldly accidents
don't count.