All Things Considered | Page 7

bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways (in any special
sense) of succeeding. One is by doing very good work, the other is by
cheating. Both are much too simple to require any literary explanation.
If you are in for the high jump, either jump higher than any one else, or
manage somehow to pretend that you have done so. If you want to
succeed at whist, either be a good whist-player, or play with marked
cards. You may want a book about jumping; you may want a book
about whist; you may want a book about cheating at whist. But you
cannot want a book about Success. Especially you cannot want a book
about Success such as those which you can now find scattered by the
hundred about the book-market. You may want to jump or to play cards;
but you do not want to read wandering statements to the effect that
jumping is jumping, or that games are won by winners. If these writers,

for instance, said anything about success in jumping it would be
something like this: "The jumper must have a clear aim before him. He
must desire definitely to jump higher than the other men who are in for
the same competition. He must let no feeble feelings of mercy (sneaked
from the sickening Little Englanders and Pro-Boers) prevent him from
trying to do his best. He must remember that a competition in jumping
is distinctly competitive, and that, as Darwin has gloriously
demonstrated, THE WEAKEST GO TO THE WALL." That is the kind
of thing the book would say, and very useful it would be, no doubt, if
read out in a low and tense voice to a young man just about to take the
high jump. Or suppose that in the course of his intellectual rambles the
philosopher of Success dropped upon our other case, that of playing
cards, his bracing advice would run--"In playing cards it is very
necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by maudlin
humanitarians and Free Traders) of permitting your opponent to win
the game. You must have grit and snap and go in to win. The days of
idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of science and
hard common sense, and it has now been definitely proved that in any
game where two are playing IF ONE DOES NOT WIN THE OTHER
WILL." It is all very stirring, of course; but I confess that if I were
playing cards I would rather have some decent little book which told
me the rules of the game. Beyond the rules of the game it is all a
question either of talent or dishonesty; and I will undertake to provide
either one or the other--which, it is not for me to say.
Turning over a popular magazine, I find a queer and amusing example.
There is an article called "The Instinct that Makes People Rich." It is
decorated in front with a formidable portrait of Lord Rothschild. There
are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people
rich; the only "instinct" I know of which does it is that instinct which
theological Christianity crudely describes as "the sin of avarice." That,
however, is beside the present point. I wish to quote the following
exquisite paragraphs as a piece of typical advice as to how to succeed.
It is so practical; it leaves so little doubt about what should be our next
step--"The name of Vanderbilt is synonymous with wealth gained by
modern enterprise. 'Cornelius,' the founder of the family, was the first
of the great American magnates of commerce. He started as the son of

a poor farmer; he ended as a millionaire twenty times over."
"He had the money-making instinct. He seized his opportunities, the
opportunities that were given by the application of the steam-engine to
ocean traffic, and by the birth of railway locomotion in the wealthy but
undeveloped United States of America, and consequently he amassed
an immense fortune.
"Now it is, of course, obvious that we cannot all follow exactly in the
footsteps of this great railway monarch. The precise opportunities that
fell to him do not occur to us. Circumstances have changed. But,
although this is so, still, in our own sphere and in our own
circumstances, we can follow his general methods; we can seize those
opportunities that are given us, and give ourselves a very fair chance of
attaining riches."
In such strange utterances we see quite clearly what is really at the
bottom of all these articles and books. It is not mere business; it is not
even mere cynicism. It is mysticism; the horrible mysticism of money.
The writer of that passage did not really have the remotest notion of
how Vanderbilt made his money, or