“You have had long years of distinction and comfort; do you find that
success brings content and happiness?”
“Well,” he answered, contracting his brows with legal severity,
“constant labor is happiness, and success simply means ability to do
more labor,—more deeds far-reaching in their power and effect. Such
success brings about as much happiness as the world provides.”
“I mean,” I explained, “the fruits of that which is conventionally
accepted as success; few hours of toil, a luxuriously furnished home,
hosts of friends, the applause of the people, sumptuous repasts, and
content in idleness, knowing that enough has been done.”
“We never know that enough has been done,” said the lawyer. “All
this sounds pleasant, but the truth is that the men whose great
efforts have made such things possible for themselves are the very
last to desire them. You have described what appeals to the idler,
the energyless dreamer, the fashionable dawdler, and the listless
voluptuary. Enjoyment of such things would sap the strength and deaden
the ambition of a Lincoln. The man who has attained to the position
where these things are possible is the one whose life has been a
constant refutation of the need of these things. He is the one who
has abstained, who has conserved his mental and physical strength by
living a simple and frugal life. He has not taken more than he needed,
and never, if possible, less. His enjoyment has been in working, and I
guarantee that you will find successful men ever to be plain-mannered
persons of simple tastes, to whom sumptuous repasts are a bore, and
luxury a thing apart. They may live surrounded by these things, but
personally take little interest in them, knowing them to be mere
trappings, which neither add to nor detract from character.”