Not exactly the sort of thing for an idle fellow to think about, is it?
But outsiders, you know, often see most of the game; and sitting in my
arbor by the wayside, smoking my hookah of contentment and eating
the sweet lotus-leaves of indolence, I can look out musingly upon the
whirling throng that rolls and tumbles past me on the great high-road of
life.
Never-ending is the wild procession. Day and night you can hear the
quick tramp of the myriad feet--some running, some walking, some
halting and lame; but all hastening, all eager in the feverish race, all
straining life and limb and heart and soul to reach the ever-receding
horizon of success.
Mark them as they surge along--men and women, old and young, gentle
and simple, fair and foul, rich and poor, merry and sad--all hurrying,
bustling, scrambling. The strong pushing aside the weak, the cunning
creeping past the foolish; those behind elbowing those before; those
in front kicking, as they run, at those behind. Look close and see the
flitting show. Here is an old man panting for breath, and there a timid
maiden driven by a hard and sharp-faced matron; here is a studious
youth, reading "How to Get On in the World" and letting everybody
pass him as he stumbles along with his eyes on his book; here is a
bored-looking man, with a fashionably dressed woman jogging his elbow;
here a boy gazing wistfully back at the sunny village that he
never again will see; here, with a firm and easy step, strides a
broad-shouldered man; and here, with stealthy tread, a thin-faced,
stooping fellow dodges and shuffles upon his way; here, with gaze fixed
always on the ground, an artful rogue carefully works his way from side
to side of the road and thinks he is going forward; and here a youth
with a noble face stands, hesitating as he looks from the distant goal
to the mud beneath his feet.
And now into sight comes a fair girl, with her dainty face growing more
wrinkled at every step, and now a care-worn man, and now a hopeful lad.
A motley throng--a motley throng! Prince and beggar, sinner and saint,
butcher and baker and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors, and
plowboys and sailors--all jostling along together. Here the counsel
in his wig and gown, and here the old Jew clothes-man under his dingy
tiara; here the soldier in his scarlet, and here the undertaker's mute
in streaming hat-band and worn cotton gloves; here the musty scholar
fumbling his faded leaves, and here the scented actor dangling his showy
seals. Here the glib politician crying his legislative panaceas, and
here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack holding aloft his quack cures for human
ills. Here the sleek capitalist and there the sinewy laborer; here
the man of science and here the shoe-back; here the poet and here
the water-rate collector; here the cabinet minister and there the
ballet-dancer. Here a red-nosed publican shouting the praises of his
vats and there a temperance lecturer at 50 pounds a night; here a judge
and there a swindler; here a priest and there a gambler. Here a jeweled
duchess, smiling and gracious; here a thin lodging-house keeper,
irritable with cooking; and here a wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry in
paint and finery.
Cheek by cheek they struggle onward. Screaming, cursing, and praying,
laughing, singing, and moaning, they rush past side by side. Their speed
never slackens, the race never ends. There is no wayside rest for them,
no halt by cooling fountains, no pause beneath green shades. On, on,
on--on through the heat and the crowd and the dust--on, or they will
be trampled down and lost--on, with throbbing brain and tottering
limbs--on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, and a
gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up another space.
And yet, in spite of the killing pace and the stony track, who but
the sluggard or the dolt can hold aloof from the course? Who--like the
belated traveler that stands watching fairy revels till he snatches and
drains the goblin cup and springs into the whirling circle--can view the
mad tumult and not be drawn into its midst? Not I, for one. I confess to
the wayside arbor, the pipe of contentment, and the lotus-leaves
being altogether unsuitable metaphors. They sounded very nice and
philosophical, but I'm afraid I am not the sort of person to sit in
arbors smoking pipes when there is any fun going on outside. I think
I more resemble the Irishman who, seeing a crowd collecting, sent his
little girl out to ask if there was going to be a row--"'Cos, if so,
father would like to be in it."
I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. I like to hear of people
getting on in it--battling their way bravely and fairly--that is, not
slipping through by luck or trickery. It stirs one's old Saxon fighting
blood like the tales of "knights who fought 'gainst fearful odds" that
thrilled us in our school-boy days.
And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds, too.
There are giants and dragons in this nineteenth century, and the golden
casket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in the
story-books. There, Algernon takes one long, last look at the ancestral
hall, dashes the tear-drop from his eye, and goes off--to return in
three years' time, rolling in riches. The authors do not tell us "how
it's done," which is a pity, for it would surely prove exciting.
But then not one novelist in a thousand ever does tell us the real story
of their hero. They linger for a dozen pages over a tea-party, but sum
up a life's history with "he had become one of our merchant princes," or
"he was now a great artist, with the world at his feet." Why, there
is more real life in one of Gilbert's patter-songs than in half the
biographical novels ever written. He relates to us all the various steps
by which his office-boy rose to be the "ruler of the queen's navee," and
explains to us how the briefless barrister managed to become a great and
good judge, "ready to try this breach of promise of marriage." It is
in the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest of
existence lies.
What we really want is a novel showing us all the hidden under-current
of an ambitious man's career--his struggles, and failures, and hopes,
his disappointments and victories. It would be an immense success. I am
sure the wooing of Fortune would prove quite as interesting a tale as
the wooing of any flesh-and-blood maiden, though, by the way, it would
read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, as the ancients painted
her, very like a woman--not quite so unreasonable and inconsistent, but
nearly so--and the pursuit is much the same in one case as in the other.
Ben Jonson's couplet--
"Court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you"--
puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never thoroughly cares for her
lover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you have
snapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel that she
begins to smile upon you.
But by that time you do not much care whether she smiles or frowns. Why
could she not have smiled when her smiles would have filled you with
ecstasy? Everything comes too late in this world.
Good people say that it is quite right and proper that it should be so,
and that it proves ambition is wicked.
Bosh! Good people are altogether wrong. (They always are, in my opinion.
We never agree on any single point.) What would the world do without
ambitious people, I should like to know? Why, it would be as flabby as
a Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the leaven which raises it into
wholesome bread. Without ambitious people the world would never get
up. They are busybodies who are about early in the morning, hammering,
shouting, and rattling the fire-irons, and rendering it generally
impossible for the rest of the house to remain in bed.
Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth! The men wrong who, with bent back and
sweating brow, cut the smooth road over which humanity marches forward
from generation to generation! Men wrong for using the talents that
their Master has intrusted to them--for toiling while others play!
Of course they are seeking their reward. Man is not given that godlike
unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working for
themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no
man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf
helps to mold the universe. The stream in struggling onward turns the
mill-wheel; the coral insect, fashioning its tiny cell, joins continents
to one another; and the ambitious man, building a pedestal for himself,
leaves a monument to posterity. Alexander and Caesar fought for their
own ends, but in doing so they put a belt of civilization half round
the earth. Stephenson, to win a fortune, invented the steam-engine; and
Shakespeare wrote his plays in order to keep a comfortable home for Mrs.
Shakespeare and the little Shakespeares.
Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form
a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and
they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for
the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say
against contented people so long as they keep quiet. But do not, for
goodness' sake, let them go strutting about, as they are so fond of
doing, crying out that they are the true models for the whole species.
Why, they are the deadheads, the drones in the great hive, the street
crowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are working.
And let them not imagine, either--as they are also fond of doing--that
they are very wise and philosophical and that it is a very artful
thing to be contented. It may be true that "a contented mind is happy
anywhere," but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is that both
are put anywhere and are treated anyhow. "Oh, you need not bother about
him," is what is said; "he is very contented as he is, and it would be a
pity to disturb him." And so your contented party is passed over and the
discontented man gets his place.
If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble
with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal.
Because if you don't you won't get any. In this world it is necessary to
adopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action for damages,
and to demand ten times more than you are ready to accept. If you can
feel satisfied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a thousand; if you
start by suggesting a hundred you will only get ten.
It was by not following this simple plan that poor Jean Jacques Rousseau
came to such grief. He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss at living
in an orchard with an amiable woman and a cow, and he never attained
even that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the woman was not
amiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was no cow. Now,
if he had made up his mind for a large country estate, a houseful of
angels, and a cattle-show, he might have lived to possess his kitchen
garden and one head of live-stock, and even possibly have come across
that _rara-avis_--a really amiable woman.
What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be for contented people!
How heavy the time must hang upon their hands, and what on earth do they
occupy their thoughts with, supposing that they have any? Reading the
paper and smoking seems to be the intellectual food of the majority
of them, to which the more energetic add playing the flute and talking
about the affairs of the next-door neighbor.
They never knew the excitement of expectation nor the stern delight of
accomplished effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has objects,
and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man life is a brilliant game--a
game that calls forth all his tact and energy and nerve--a game to be
won, in the long run, by the quick eye and the steady hand, and yet
having sufficient chance about its working out to give it all the
glorious zest of uncertainty. He exults in it as the strong swimmer in
the heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle, the soldier in the
battle.
And if he be defeated he wins the grim joy of fighting; if he lose the
race, he, at least, has had a run. Better to work and fail than to sleep
one's life away.
So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen! walk up,
boys and girls! Show your skill and try your strength; brave your luck
and prove your pluck. Walk up! The show is never closed and the game is
always going. The only genuine sport in all the fair, gentlemen--highly
respectable and strictly moral--patronized by the nobility, clergy, and
gentry. Established in the year one, gentlemen, and been flourishing
ever since--walk up! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and take a hand.
There are prizes for all and all can play. There is gold for the man and
fame for the boy; rank for the maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walk
up, ladies and gentlemen, walk up!--all prizes and no blanks; for some
few win, and as to the rest, why--
"The rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquished gain."