The first aim for your time and your generation should be, to foster,
each in yourselves, a simple and self-denying life—your ideal to be a
true and useful one, must have these two characteristics before all
others. Of course purity, courage, truthfulness are as absolutely
necessary as ever, without them there can be no ideal at all. But as
each age and each country has its own special needs and weaknesses, so
the best mind of its youth should be bent on serving where the need is
sorest, and bringing strength to the weak places. There will be always
crowds ready to fall in with the dapper, pliant ways which lead most
readily to success in every community. Society has been said to be
“always and everywhere in conspiracy against the true manhood of every
one of its members,” and the saying, though bitter, contains a sad
truth. So the faithful idealist will have to learn, without arrogance
and with perfect good temper, to treat society as a child, and never
to allow it to dictate. So treated, society will surely come round to
those who have a high ideal before them, and therefore firm ground
under their feet.
“Coy Hebe flies from those that woo
And shuns the hand would seize upon her;
Live thou thy life, and she will sue,
To pour for thee the cup of honor.”
Let me say a word or two more on this business of success. Is it
not, after all, the test of true and faithful work? Must it not be
the touchstone of the humble and magnanimous, as well as of the
self-asserting and ambitious? Undoubtedly; but here again we have to
note that what passes with society for success, and is so labeled by
public opinion, may well be, as often as not actually is, a bad kind of
failure.
Public opinion in our day has, for instance, been jubilant over the
success of those who have started in life penniless and have made
large fortunes. Indeed, this particular class of self-made men is the
one which we have been of late invited to honor. Before doing so,
however, we shall have to ask with some care, and bearing in mind
Emerson’s warnings, by what method the fortune has been made. The rapid
accumulation of national wealth in England can scarcely be called a
success by any one who studies the methods by which it has been made,
and its effects on the national character. It may be otherwise with
this or that millionaire, but each case must be judged on its own
merits.