A Fleece of Gold | Page 6

favor of fortune
and subjugates fate. The world worships success regardless of how
acquired; makes it a standard for judging men, an indispensable
credential for all approval. If a man succeeds he is held to be wise, even
though mediocre; if he fails, whatever his learning and intrinsic merit,
little regard is paid to him. Success gilds and glorifies a multitude of
blunders and littlenesses, and people are thought merely to exist who
do not keep themselves on the road leading to it. In view of all this, it is
no wonder that we see all humanity looking earnestly toward success
and moving with eager step in search of it.
"Success is essentially the accomplishment of one's desires and
purposes, the realization of one's ideals. But this definition does not
necessarily imply a high state of being. As I sit by my window writing,
the hoarse cry of a rag-man and the mournful strains of a hand-organ
come to my ears. That able-bodied Greek, who is so lavish with his
'music,' and the rag-man, who is buying what the other is distributing
freely, both are in quest of the same thing--'success.'"
Alas! the world too often measures success by false
standards--worships the Golden Fleece, forgetting the high purpose it
might be made to serve; so dazzled by means that ends become
oblivious. The spirit of the age is to pay homage to great riches. The
finely attired custodian of a money bag too often is regarded as an
exponent of success. On this point we should guard ourselves, first
ascertaining if the gorgeous equipage is the "genuine fleece," or only a
sham intended to deceive. A mansion on a valuable corner lot does not
constitute the "golden quality," nor does a million dollars in bank
epitomize its character. Its language is not spoken in the dialect of Wall
Street or of wheat pits. Gold, grain, stocks, and bonds and estates too
often mean the perversion of those qualities most valuable to human
life. Realty is not the prime issue of life, but reality. If that which a man
gets in his pay envelope, however lucrative that may be, constituted his
only reward, his effort would be miserably compensated.
The man who has spent his life like a scaraboid beetle rolling up money,
without due regard for the common virtues of life, has not left

"footprints on the sands of time," but only a zigzag trail along the
highway over which he has journeyed. He has not achieved success in
that he has accumulated riches without a corresponding accumulation
of "wealth." To seek a purely selfish and material success is to defeat
the very purpose of one's existence--"life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." In the very conquest for this baser type a man blights his
sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect
for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his
happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has
nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his
senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if
we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will
net us in dollars and cents, we are not on the road leading to success.
For success does not consist in the acquisition of the material, so much
as in a mental discipline that seeks objectively to subordinate intrinsic
value.
We must confess, however, that the age in which we live is one of brick
and mortar; that materialism and not æstheticism reigns over us. The
book-keeper's pen has usurped the office of the artist's brush and the
carpenter's chisel that of the sculptor. Intrinsic worth and
dividend-paying value holds sway, and even the gift-horse is looked in
the mouth while the priceless motive that prompted its giving is
forgotten.
The commercial spirit which pervades the atmosphere of modern times
is disintegrating the sublimer side of human life. The gilded god of
materialism is lavishing its blessings in the realm of science and
invention and commercial enterprise, at the expense of aestheticism, till
to-day there are thousands of artisans to every artist. We have an
abundance of stone masons, but few Phidiases or Angelos; hundreds of
organ grinders, but few Beethovens or Webers or Bachs; a full quota of
men engrossed in the cold calculus of business, but a scarcity of
Homers or Dantes or Virgils.
Speaking of this material aspect of our epoch and how it is likely to be
regarded in the future, when the paradise of ideal living is regained, a
modern writer says: "Will not the intense preoccupation of material
production, the hurry and strain of our cities, the draining of life into
one channel,