Success | Page 4

it would degenerate into mere weakness or folly. A man wants to be certain of his own just inclination before he can dare to handle mercy. But the quality of mercy is, perhaps, not so common in the human heart as to require this caution. It is a quality that has to be acquired. But the man of success and affairs ought to be the last person to complain of the difficulty of acquiring it. He has in his early days felt the whip-hand too often not to sympathise with the feelings of the under-dog. And he always knows that at some time in his career he, too, may need a merciful interpretation of a financial situation. Shakespeare may not have had this in his mind when he said that mercy "blesseth him that gives and him that takes"; but he is none the less right. Those who exercise mercy lay up a store of it for themselves. Shylock had law on his side, but not justice or mercy. One is reminded of his case by the picture of certain Jews and Gentiles alike as seen playing roulette at Monte Carlo. Their losses, inevitable to any one who plays long enough, seem to sadden them. M. Blanc would be doing a real act of mercy if he would exact his toll not in cash, but in flesh. Some of the players are of a figure and temperament which would miss the pound of flesh far less than the pound sterling.
What, then, in its essence is the quality of mercy? It is something beyond the mere desire not to push an advantage too far. It is a feeling of tenderness springing out of harsh experience, as a flower springs out of a rock. It is an inner sense of gratitude for the scheme of things, finding expression in outward action, and, therefore, assuring its possessor of an abiding happiness.
The quality of Humility is by far the most difficult to attain. There is something deep down in the nature of a successful man of affairs which seems to conflict with it. His career is born in a sense of struggle and courage and conquest, and the very type of the effort seems to invite in the completed form a temperament of arrogance. I cannot pretend to be humble myself; all I can confess is the knowledge that in so far as I could acquire humility I should be happier. Indeed, many instances prove that success and humility are not incompatible. One of the most eminent of our politicians is by nature incurably modest. The difficulty in reconciling the two qualities lies in that "perpetual presence of self to self which, though common enough in men of great ambition and ability, never ceases to be a flaw."
But there is certainly one form of humility which all successful men ought to be able to practise. They can avoid a fatal tendency to look down on and despise the younger men who are planting their feet in their own footsteps. The established arrogance which refuses credit or opportunity to rising talent is unpardonable. A man who gives way to what is really simply a form of jealousy cannot hope to be happy, for jealousy is above all others the passion which tears the heart.
The great stumbling block which prevents success embracing humility is the difficulty of distinguishing between the humble mind and the cowardly one. When does humility merge into moral cowardice and courage into arrogance? Some men in history have had this problem solved for them. Stonewall Jackson is a type of the man of supreme courage and action and judgment who was yet supremely humble--but he owed his bodily and mental qualities to nature and his humility to the intensity of his Presbyterian faith. Few men are so fortunately compounded.
Still, if the moral judgment is worth anything, a man should be able to practise courage without arrogance and to walk humbly without fear. If he can accomplish the feat he will reap no material reward, but an immense harvest of inner well-being. He will have found the blue bird of happiness which escapes so easily from the snare. He will have joined Justice to Mercy and added Humility to Courage, and in the light of this self-knowledge he will have attained the zenith of a perpetual satisfaction.

III
LUCK
Some of the critics do not believe that the pinnacle of success stands only on the three pillars of Judgment, Industry, and Health. They point out that I have omitted one vital factor--Luck. So widespread is this belief, largely pagan in its origin, that mere fortune either makes or unmakes men, that it seems worth while to discuss and refute this dangerous delusion.
Of course, if the doctrine merely means that men are the victims of circumstances and