Success | Page 4

what they should do unto you. But this is certain. No man can be happy
if he suffers from a perpetual doubt of his own justice.
The second quality, Mercy, has been regarded as something in contrast

or conflict with justice. It is not really so. Mercy resembles the
prerogative of the judge to temper the law to suit individual cases. It
must be of a kindred temper with justice, or 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.

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