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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fleece of Gold, by Charles Stewart Given
+
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+Title: A Fleece of Gold
+       Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece
+
+Author: Charles Stewart Given
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8881]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 20, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLEECE OF GOLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+A Fleece of Gold
+
+Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece
+
+by
+
+Charles Stewart Given
+
+1905
+
+
+
+Second Edition Revised
+
+
+
+To my sons
+Kingsley and Gordon
+
+
+  "Jason and his men seized the favorable moment of the rebound, plied
+  their oars with vigor, and passed through in safety."
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+  I. The Ruling Element, "Jason and his men."
+
+ II. The Golden Quality, "They passed through."
+
+III. The Messenger of Fate, "They seized the favourable moment."
+
+ IV. The Active Hand, "They plied their oars with vigor."
+
+  V. Ethics of Activity
+
+
+
+
+Foreword
+
+
+
+Among the smaller forces which operate upon the mind and tend toward
+strengthening and exalting the best ideals, are little books like this.
+They are especially valuable when so much of the author's own experience
+forms a thread upon which are suspended jewels of thought and illustration
+serviceable to those who would see and know the best things.
+
+I have found these characteristics in this small volume, and gladly
+recommend it to all those who would become more familiar with what our
+author calls "the key to that cabinet of character in which nature
+conceals not only the motive power of every-day life, but those latent
+talents and energies that, through a knowledge of self, we can bring to
+bear upon our lives." This book will help many who have small
+opportunities in the form of time and money to expend in the use of
+larger volumes.
+
+Charles Stewart Given
+
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+
+
+The fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece is known to old and young the
+world around. To the latter, perhaps, no other simple narrative in
+Greek mythology is more fascinating, nor holds a more valuable lesson
+if they will but seek to learn it. But especially to the boy or young
+man of thoughtful mind does the glorious adventure appeal and make its
+lessons obvious. By way of refreshing the memory of those who were once
+familiar with the myth, but who, in the practical school of experience,
+have lost the chord of their adventure-loving days; and also for those,
+perchance, who are not acquainted with the tale, a brief sketch will
+here serve our purpose.
+
+In Thessaly dwell a king and a queen with their two children, a boy and a
+girl. The holy alliance between the two royal members of the household
+becomes disrupted, and Nephele, the good mother, appeals to Mercury, the
+messenger of the gods, to assist her in secretly placing the children out
+of reach of their father, the king. Mercury provides a ram with a golden
+fleece, on which the boy and girl are placed. The shining creature springs
+into the air, bearing its precious burden across the sea. Unfortunately,
+the girl falls from the ram's back and is drowned, but the boy is landed
+safely on the other shore in the kingdom of Colchis. Here he sacrifices
+the ram to Jupiter and presents the golden fleece to the king, who places
+it in a consecrated grove under the care of a sleepless dragon.
+
+Now Jason is heir to the throne of AEson, ruler of another kingdom in
+Thessaly, from whence the royal children started on their adventurous
+journey. Years have passed, however, since this remarkable incident, and
+Jason, being now a young man and having been told the dramatic tale of
+the Golden Fleece, begins to think what a glorious adventure it would be
+to go in quest of the royal prize. Forthwith he makes preparations for
+the expedition, and with a band of other lusty young heroes starts on a
+sea voyage toward the land of the Colchian king. It is not without
+difficulty, however, that they accomplish the voyage, for at the entrance
+of the Euxine Sea they encounter two floating islands, veritable
+mountains of rock, huge and shaggy, which, in their tossings and
+heavings, at intervals come together "crushing and grinding to atoms any
+object that might be caught between them." But "_Jason and his men seized
+the favorable moment of the rebound, plied their oars with vigor and
+passed through in safety_."
+
+Approaching the royal palace Jason makes known his mission, whereupon
+the king promises to relinquish the valuable possession if Jason will
+yoke to the plow two fire-breathing bulls and sow the teeth of the
+dragon. Apprehending that by this means the king seeks to destroy him,
+Jason pleads his cause to Medea, the king's daughter, who furnishes him
+a charm by which he can safely encounter the fiery breath of the beasts
+and the armed men that will spring up in the furrow where the dragon's
+teeth are sown.
+
+In his "Age of Fable," Bullfinch gives us a graphic picture of the scene:
+"At the time appointed the people assembled at the grove of Mars, and the
+king assumed his royal seat, while the multitude covered the hill-sides.
+The brazen-footed bulls rushed in, breathing fire from their nostrils that
+burned up the herbage as they passed. The sound was like the roar of a
+furnace, and the smoke like that of water upon quick-lime. Jason advanced
+boldly to meet them. His friends, the chosen heroes of Greece, trembled to
+behold him. Regardless of the burning breath, he soothed their rage with
+his voice, patted their necks with fearless hand, and adroitly slipped
+over them the yoke, and compelled them to drag the plow. The Colchians
+were amazed; the Greeks shouted for joy. Jason next proceeded to sow the
+dragon's teeth and plow them in. And soon the crop of armed men sprang up,
+and, wonderful to relate! no sooner had they reached the surface than they
+began to brandish their weapons and rush upon Jason. The Greeks trembled
+for their hero, and even she who had provided him a way of safety and
+taught him how to use it, Medea herself, grew pale with fear. Jason for a
+time kept his assailants at bay with his sword and shield, till finding
+their numbers overwhelming, he resorted to the charm which Medea had
+taught him, seized a stone and threw it in the midst of his foes. They
+immediately turned their arms against one another, and soon there was not
+one of the dragon's brood left alive."
+
+Having complied with all the conditions set forth by the king, the victor
+now turns with eager step toward the grove of Mars, and seizing the golden
+prize makes his way back to Thessaly, rejoicing in his glorious success.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+The Ruling Element
+
+
+
+"Jason and His Men."
+
+
+    What constitutes a state?
+  Not high-raised battlements or labored mound,
+    Thick wall or moated gate;
+  Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
+    Not bays and broad armed ports,
+  Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
+    Not starred and spangled courts,
+  Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
+    No! men--high-minded men--
+  With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
+    In forest, brake, or den,
+  As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude.
+
+  --Sir William Jones.
+
+
+
+
+The Young Man
+
+
+Jason has just stepped over the threshold into the glory of a rich young
+manhood. And he is careful to select for his expedition some of the
+choicest heroes of Greece--young, brave, and strong. It has ever been
+thus. Youth has always been synonymous with adventure. It is a condition
+which seems inherent; nature instilling into the blood of her sons the
+very spirit of discontent--of longing to push out from the commonplace
+scenes of childhood into broader domains of experience.
+
+The very books which most fascinate the boy are those which deal in
+thrilling tales of adventure. The wily and unscrupulous traffickers in
+cheap literature have ever been awake to this fact, and their
+highly-colored productions have been flung from the vicious presses like
+lava from Pelee to pollute the minds of the young. Why is it that
+"Robinson Crusoe" and stories of this character hold such a charm for
+young people, lingering in their minds long after books of a profounder
+type have been forgotten? It is the love of adventure. To what boy at
+school does not the doleful history lesson assume a more brilliant aspect
+when the adventures of Columbus are taken up? His interest is awakened,
+his imagination inspired, and he is delighted, all because again that
+chord in his nature has been struck--the love of adventure.
+
+Perhaps no other single painting in the art galleries at the World's Fair
+of 1893 attracted the attention of a greater number of people, nor
+awakened in so many human breasts a feeling of such intense pathos as
+Thomas Hovenden's painting on "Breaking Home Ties." Here we have it once
+more, adventure--Jason setting off on his journey in search for the golden
+fleece of fame and fortune. The narrow path that so long has led him out
+into the silent acres--the fields that so many years have responded to
+his toil--he has forsaken. The dull routine has ceased to inspire, the
+home circle has become too narrow for his expanding soul. He has caught a
+glimpse of the glories of a new kingdom, and now he is going out to
+realize them.
+
+The young man has always been the _ruling element_ in every new departure.
+He has been the rock upon which the ages have been founded. In the words
+of another: "When the roll-call which men have written is read, it will be
+found that the young men have ruled the world. The oldest literatures have
+this record. The patriarchs unfolded the careers of boys into the conquest
+of old age. Kingdom and empire rode upon the shoulders of young men, and
+their voices of enthusiasm and hope have sounded through many a
+black-breasted midnight and trumpeted the dawn through skies of thickest
+darkness. To causes that drooped they have come and added the raptures of
+hope; to enterprises that were sickening and faint they have brought the
+bounding power of new enthusiasm. To the dead they have brought life.
+Everything from the foundation of the world has been crying for 'young
+blood,' and the armies of the advance have gained the day at the arrival
+of 'recruits,' whose hope and earnestness have never been defeated. Age
+and experience put themselves upon dying pillows made by young hands; into
+young palms and upon young ears falls the meaning of all the past; and
+thus God has written the natural dignity of the young man's life in the
+eternal statute book of the universe." [Footnote: From "Young Men of
+History," by Dr. F.W. Gunsaulus.]
+
+We have but to turn our gaze back over the centuries to find that it has
+always been the young man who has embarked in the world's great
+enterprises. If we turn the pages of religious history we shall find that
+he has been potent there. For when the stream of Hebrew destiny was to be
+turned, a young man, Joseph, who had been sold as a slave into Egypt, was
+selected to accomplish it. And later young Saul of Kish while roaming
+through his father's fields was summoned to a throne. It was the young
+shepherd boy--David--that was chosen "to keep the banner of Israel in the
+sky while the shadows hung black above the hills of Judah." When the
+gospel was to be borne to the Gentiles the divine finger fell upon a young
+tent-maker of Tarsus. Fourteen centuries later a miner's son, Martin
+Luther, won Germany for the Reformation, and John Wesley "while yet a
+student in college" started his mighty world-famous movement. At fifteen
+John de Medici was a cardinal, and Bossuet was known by his eloquence; at
+sixteen Pascal wrote a great work. Ignatius Loyola before he was thirty
+began his pilgrimage, and soon afterward wrote his most famous books. At
+twenty-two Savonarola was rousing the consciences of the Florentines, and
+at twenty-five John Huss was an enthusiastic champion of truth.
+
+But we see the young man standing before the footlights on the stage of
+secular history, too. At twelve Remenyi was making his violin tremulous
+with melody, and Caesar delivered an oration at Rome; at thirteen Henry M.
+Stanley was a teacher; at fourteen Demosthenes was known as an orator; at
+fifteen Robert Burns was a great poet, Rossini composed an opera, and
+Liszt was a wizard in music. At the age of sixteen Victor Hugo was known
+throughout France; at seventeen Mozart had made a name in Germany, and
+Michael Angelo was a rising star in Italy. At eighteen Marcus Aurelius was
+made a consul; at nineteen Byron was the "amazing genius" of his time; at
+twenty Raphael had finished some of his most famous paintings, Faraday was
+attracting the attention of his country, and two years later was admitted
+to the Royal Institution of Great Britain. At twenty-one Alexander the
+Great conquered the Persians, Beethoven was entrancing the world with his
+music, and William Wilberforce was in Parliament. At twenty-two William
+Pitt had entered Parliament, while William of Orange had received from
+Charles V command of an army. At twenty-three William E. Gladstone had
+denounced the Reform Bill at Oxford, and two years afterward became First
+Junior Lord of the Treasury, and Livingstone was exploring the continent.
+At twenty-four Sir Humphrey Davy was Professor of Chemistry in the Royal
+Institution, Dante, Ruskin, and Browning had become famous writers. At
+twenty-five Hume had written his treatise on Human Nature, Galileo was
+lecturer of science at the University of Pisa, and Mark Antony was the
+"hero of Rome." At twenty-six Sir Isaac Newton had made his greatest
+discoveries; at twenty-seven Don John of Austria had won Lepanto, and
+Napoleon was commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. At twenty-eight
+AEschylus was the peer of Greek tragedy, at twenty-nine Maurice of Saxony
+the greatest statesman of the age, and at thirty Frederick the Great was
+the most conspicuous character of his day. At the same age Richelieu was
+Secretary of State, and Cortez little older when he gazed on the "golden
+Cupolas" of Mexico. These are a few of the splendid names that illumine
+the pages of history across the sea.
+
+But the young man has been no less potent in the affairs of our own
+Nation, which has always been conspicuous for its production of truly
+great men. The story is told that when one of England's great men was
+visiting Henry Clay, and the two were riding over the country, the
+distinguished guest inquired of his host, "What do you raise on these
+hills and in these beautiful valleys?" "Men," was Clay's reply; and the
+English patriot declared that this was the greatest crop to enrich a
+country. We boast that we have given the world a full quota of really
+great young men, some of them like Jason embarking on the sea of adventure
+while the dew of extreme youth is still on their brow. If we wend our way
+back through the grand procession of events of but a single century we
+will find extreme youth marking out the lines of progress and directing
+the course of the nation in politics, in literature and religion.
+
+We would see William Prescott, a boy of twelve, diligently at work in the
+Boston Athenaeum, or Jonathan Edwards at thirteen entering Yale College,
+and while yet of a tender age shining in the horizon of American
+literature; while the same age finds H. W. Longfellow writing for the
+Portland _Gazette_. At fourteen John Quincy Adams was private secretary to
+Francis H. Dana, American Minister to Russia; at fifteen Benjamin Franklin
+was writing for the _New England Courant_, and at an early age became a
+noted journalist. Benjamin West at sixteen had painted "The Death of
+Socrates," at seventeen George Bancroft had won a degree in history,
+Washington Irving had gained distinction as a writer. At eighteen
+Alexander Hamilton was famous as an orator, and one year later became a
+lieutenant-colonel under Washington. At nineteen Washington himself was a
+major, Nathan Hale had distinguished himself in the Revolution, Bryant had
+written "Thanatopsis," and Bayard Taylor was engaged in writing his first
+book, "Views Afoot." At twenty Richard Henry Stoddard had found a place in
+the leading periodicals of his day, John Jacob Astor was in business in
+New York, and Jay Gould was president and general manager of a railroad.
+At twenty-one Edward Everett was professor of Greek Literature at Harvard,
+and James Russell Lowell had published a whole volume of his poems; at
+twenty-two Charles Sumner had attracted the attention of some of the
+famous men of his day, William H. Seward had entered upon a brilliant
+political career, while Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau occupied
+a conspicuous place in literature. At twenty-three James Monroe was a
+member of the Executive Council, and one year later was elected to
+Congress; at twenty-four Thomas A. Edison and Richard Jordan Gatling were
+inventors. At twenty-five John C. Calhoun made the famous speech that gave
+him a seat in the Legislature, George William Curtis had traversed Italy,
+Germany, and the Orient and soon after became known by his books of
+travel. At twenty-six Thomas Jefferson occupied a seat in the House of
+Burgesses, John Quincy Adams was minister to The Hague; at twenty-seven
+Patrick Henry was known as the "Orator of Nature," and Robert Y. Hayne was
+speaker in the Legislature of South Carolina. At twenty-eight Edward
+Everett Hale had found a place in the hearts and minds of the people, and
+at twenty-nine John Jay, youngest member of the Continental Congress, was
+chosen to draw up the address to the British Nation.
+
+These illustrious ones, who before their thirtieth year had written their
+names on the immortal banner of their country, are only a few which adorn
+the pages of our early history. Others of like purport might be added
+indefinitely both from the early and the later life of our country. And
+there has been no time when the young man played so important a role in
+human affairs as he does to-day in the dawn of the twentieth century,
+when the heart and the mind, philanthropy and literature, virtue and
+truth, science and art, capital and labor are the principal factors in the
+world's progress. To refer to but a single instance in this period of our
+national life, there is no greater statesman and patriot than our beloved
+President, Theodore Roosevelt,--a young man to whom we are proud to point
+as a true type of American greatness and American manhood. Assuming
+control of the Nation at such a critical moment in her history, when so
+many dangerous rocks lay in her course, tremendous, indeed, was the
+responsibility thrust upon him. But by his inherent principle of rule, his
+unquenchable patriotism, his indomitable purpose, and the imperiousness of
+his will, founded on a rich scholarship and a broad policy, he has spelled
+triumph out of difficulty, and his name will go down in twentieth-century
+history an example of illustrious young manhood.
+
+The young man is emphatically the _ruling element_ in politics to-day. It
+is estimated that a sufficient number of young men come of age every four
+years to control the issue of the Presidential election. Constituting
+about one-half of the present voting population, they hold far more than
+the balance of political power. It was Goethe who said that the destiny of
+any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of the young men who
+are under twenty-five years of age. And William E. Gladstone affirmed that
+the sum of the characters of this element constitute the character and
+strength of any country.
+
+And when we consider the young man in his relation to all the aspects of
+life--civic, commercial, industrial, and social--we must recognize him as
+the _ruling element_. Like Jason, the young man of to-day is the hero to
+invade the empire of thought and action in quest of the Fleece of Gold.
+
+  "Lives of great men all remind us,
+  We can make our lives sublime;
+  And departing leave behind us
+  Footprints on the sands of time."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The Golden Quality
+
+"They Passed Through."
+
+
+
+  To live content with small means:
+  To seek elegance rather than luxury, and
+  Refinement rather than fashion;
+  To be worthy, not respectable,
+  Wealthy, not rich;
+  To study hard, think quietly,
+  Talk gently, act frankly;
+  To listen to stars and birds, to
+  Babes and sages, with open heart;
+  To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
+  Await occasions, hurry never,--
+  In a word, to let the spiritual,
+  Unbidden and unconscious,
+  Grow up through the common--
+  This is to be my symphony.
+
+  --Channing.
+
+
+Success
+
+
+In every land and in every age since the curtain first rose on the world's
+great drama men have been in quest of the Fleece of Gold. The onward
+progress of the race since our rude forefathers from the leaves of the
+tree formed their clothes, and in the somber depths of the primeval forest
+constructed their habitation, is due to an insatiable desire to possess
+the coveted prize. Hanging before man's gaze in the consecrated borders of
+his existence, it has inspired him to greater usefulness. He has built
+ships and traversed the seas, invented machines, reared cities, and
+established laws. In science and art and literature he has vied with his
+fellow-man and given a mighty impulse to civilization, all for the Fleece
+of Gold--success.
+
+The world worships at the shrine of success. It regards it as man's
+greatest attribute. And whether we find it in secular affairs,
+substantiated by material grandeur, or in the mysterious realms of the
+inner life characterized by the serene consciousness of truth, it must
+ever be the goal of human aspiration.
+
+It is the thought of some day having their efforts crowned that causes men
+hotly to pursue the phantom or the reality of their lives. This aspiration
+keeps the torch of hope ablaze in the midnight darkness, and the spirits
+buoyed under the noon-day glare, while men forge on to the goal. The
+surging throngs of a great city, the active hands and brains in the
+bee-hives of industry and the many places of business, the vast army of
+seekers after knowledge in the schools and colleges throughout the land,
+the men of fame in the halls of Congress molding the affairs of the
+Nation, the countless army tilling the fields under the open sky, the
+legions in the dark caves of earth searching for treasure--all are seeking
+to enter the golden gate of success.
+
+Said Mr. A. B. Farquhar in a baccalaureate address to the students of
+McDonough College: "Success colors everything. It is the essence of all
+excellencies, the latent power which compels the 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 aestheticism 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, at the expense of breadth, richness, and beauty, appear as
+mad as the Crusades, and perhaps of a lower type of madness? Could
+anything be more indicative of a slight but general insanity than the
+aspect of the crowd on the streets of Chicago?" Why is it that the poems
+that have lived for centuries, and the masterpieces of the world's great
+painters and sculptors are not being equaled in the dawn of the twentieth
+century? The answer lies in the widespread devotion to realism instead of
+idealism. The immortals have joined the mortals in search for the Fleece
+of Gold. And Wordsworth's oft-quoted lines were never more applicable to
+us than now:
+
+  The world is too much with us; late and soon,
+  Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.
+
+All the capital in the universe does not stand for success unless there is
+set over against it the wealth of soul which Marcus Aurelius, that great
+apostle of plain living and high thinking, ever set forth as an antidote
+to the treadmill grind of commercial life. Shakespeare struck the keynote
+of this lofty conception of life, and pronounced a never-dying eulogy upon
+the supreme dignity of character when he said:
+
+  "Who steals my purse steals trash; ...
+  But he that filches from me my good name
+  Robs me of that which not enriches him,
+  And makes me poor indeed."
+
+Wealth of soul is incomparably better than all that can be obtained from
+pomp and luxury. Charlemagne is said to have worn in his crown a nail
+taken from the cross on which the Savior was crucified. He wore it among
+the jewels of his diadem as a reminder that there existed a tenderer
+relation in life than kingdoms and material splendor. Thus in the crown of
+our success, if we would make it truly great, we must place the sublimer
+elements of our being. As the ivy softens the roughness of the mountain
+side and the unsightly ruin, so will the aesthetic mellow and subdue the
+intense commercialism with which we are surrounded. Without this quality
+our success becomes like the fabled apples on the brink of the Dead
+Sea--fair without, but ashes within.
+
+If the avenue to success lay in one direction only--that of accumulating a
+fortune, little incentive would be felt by those in the lower walks of
+life. Moreover, if it were possible for all men to become millionaires,
+the very organization of human society would become disrupted; for who
+then would till the soil, run the factories, clean the streets? Nature has
+been wise in the distribution of her talents. Anticipating the havoc of
+endowing all mankind with equal powers, she established a wide diversity
+in the range of human ability. To one she has given the gift of sagacity
+to achieve success in the world of trade; to another mechanical skill to
+create the ideals of inventive genius into reality; to another the highly
+artistic sense, and withholding these higher attributes from still others,
+she has chosen to endow them with a wealth of muscular force that the
+physical requirements of organized human effort might be made effective.
+So that any way we choose to look at this question we must concede that
+temporal wealth does not constitute the broadest idea of success, nor is
+capable in itself of producing it.
+
+Even failure may be an element of a glorious success. The volcano that
+pours its vengeance upon the fair plantation below, leaving wreck and ruin
+in its path, bestows a wealth of sulphur which plays an important part in
+the world of commerce. The same frost that kills the harvest of a season
+also destroys the locust, preserving the harvests of a century. The death
+of the cocoon is the production of the silk, and the failure of the
+caterpillar the birth of the butterfly. If the boy Newton had not failed
+utterly on the farm, he would never have been started in college to become
+the mighty man of science. The fall of Rome meant the rise of the German
+Empire. "All men," says Frederick Arnold, "need through errors attain to
+truth, through struggles to victory, through regrets to that sorrow which
+is a very source of life. Men must rise in an ever-ascending scale, like
+the ladder of St. Augustine, by which men, through stepping-stones of
+their dead selves rise to higher things; or those steps of Alciphron,
+which crumbled away into nothingness as fast as each foot-fall left
+them." Thus our very failures we may overrule and convert into
+stepping-stones to success. Lifted to a loftier sphere, to a nobler
+experience, we are apt to receive greater benefit than though we escaped
+disappointment and rejoiced in easy fruition.
+
+Success does not consist in not encountering difficulties, but in
+overcoming them. If Jason is to have the golden fleece he must pass
+between the dangerous rocks, he must encounter the dragon, yoke to the
+plow the fire-breathing bulls, and subdue a regiment of armed men. If
+Joseph had not been Egypt's prisoner, he would never have been Egypt's
+governor. If Millet had not passed through the valley of sorrow, he could
+never have painted the "Angelus." The Restoration in England that gave
+Charles II a throne, drove Milton into absolute seclusion, and the last
+twelve years of his life were passed in enforced isolation. But this
+blind, deserted, broken-hearted, but illustrious scholar and poet,
+conquered despair, triumphed over every misfortune, and gave to the world
+those three great poems which have made his name immortal. Even poverty,
+which has been a hardship to the individual, has proved a boon to himself
+and to the cause of humanity. Science teaches us that ordinary mud has in
+it elements which, arranged according to the higher laws of nature,
+produce the opal, the sapphire, and the diamond. Likewise does history
+teach us that from the morass of poverty the commonest types of men have
+passed from stage to stage through the refining processes of experience
+till they have dazzled the world with their magnificence. Whether it be a
+slave like AEsop, a beggar like Homer, a peasant like Raphael, or a
+marble-cutter like Socrates, we see them at last wearing the diadem of a
+brilliant success.
+
+In fact, the foremost in all nations and in all branches have, as a rule,
+risen from the ranks of the poor and lowly. Shakespeare held horses for a
+few pennies a night in front of a London theater, and later did menial
+service back of the scenes. Disraeli was an office boy, Carlyle a
+stone-mason's attendant, and Ben Jonson was a bricklayer. Morrison and
+Carey were shoemakers, Franklin was a printer's apprentice, Burns a
+country plowman, Stephenson a collier, Faraday a bookbinder, Arkwright a
+barber, and Sir Humphrey Davy a drug clerk. Demosthenes was the son of a
+cutler, Verdi the son of a baker, Blackstone the son of a draper, and
+Luther was the son of a miner. Butler was a farmer, Hugh Miller a
+stone-cutter, Abraham Lincoln a rail-splitter, and James Garfield was a
+canal boy. One-half of the Presidents of the United States were left
+orphans at an early age, left to make their way through the world alone.
+History reveals clearly that it has been not the sons of the rich, but
+the sons of poverty that have "compelled the favor of fortune and
+subjugated fate."
+
+Neither rank nor genius nor any other natural endowment forms the only
+true basis of success. A right disposition, a desire and determination,
+founded on the sub-structure of right purpose, to cope with the problems
+that confront you, constitute the real basis of achievement. In short, the
+only demands which success makes of you is that you act with the most of
+yourself, bringing all your faculties to bear upon what you have to do;
+instilling your best effort into the infinite detail that goes to make up
+the great finality of your life. To this end, the systematic development
+of the whole man, body, mind, and soul, in such a manner as to bring you
+into right relation with things as they are and ought to be, is the
+paramount question.
+
+In fact, education is the only passport to success. I do not mean that
+education that is restricted to institutions of learning. These, while
+possessing a decided advantage, by no means have a monopoly of learning.
+Genius finds opportunity in the great laboratories of nature. Every man
+has within himself an educational organization presided over by a full
+faculty; and nature's wonderful book is ever open to him, if only he will
+lay hold upon the lessons it would teach him. This type of education which
+is the drawing out toward all things the latent forces from within, and
+the broadening out for greater usefulness, means the acquisition of
+ability to meet every emergency and the establishment of high ideals.
+
+Moreover, in the race for success, the proper nourishment of the brain is
+an essential part of self-development. The brain is substantially the
+great artist that creates our ideals in life. And yet we forget sometimes
+that it is the master of our destiny; and allow it to sink into that dull
+apathy so fatal to our hopes and aims. It would almost seem, indeed, as if
+a kind of fatality clung to some men in the way in which they neglect this
+supreme faculty of their being. You possess the power to use your brain as
+you choose; but not the right, morally, for society demands of you a high
+standard of thinking, since it is the only rational basis for a free
+government. Thus it is as much your duty properly to nourish your brain as
+to give proper care to the body.
+
+In the rigid economy of modern life we should use extreme care in the
+selection of our reading. Our best interests demand more of us than a
+gormandizing of newspapers or ephemeral reading of any kind. Far be it
+from me to disparage that great organ of the times--the newspaper, which
+is a source of keen delight and benefit to us all, and almost the only
+source of instruction to thousands of the race. But we should be judicious
+in this, and not allow transitional matter to monopolize our time. "Read
+not the times, read the eternities," cried Thoreau. The shelves of our
+home and public libraries are filled with priceless volumes yet unread by
+us. And he who is not cultivating a taste for good wholesome reading is
+missing one of the highest enjoyments of life as well as minimizing his
+chances for success. We should ever be exploring new regions of thought.
+And in the extreme activity of this electric age we shall be obliged to
+take snap shots at our reading--on the street car, in the lunch room,
+anywhere we find it possible to peruse a single page.
+
+If we look into the lives of some of the illustrious ones we shall find
+that they obtained knowledge under the greatest disadvantages. We see
+Lincoln reading his favorite volumes by the dim light of a pineknot blaze;
+or Burritt poring over his books at the forge; or Garfield gazing intently
+at the pages while riding a mule on the banks of a canal. Wesley likewise
+diligently searched the Scriptures while riding horseback over the
+country; William Cobbett learned grammar while a common soldier on the
+march; and we are told that Alexander the Great, each night on retiring,
+would place his favorite book, the "Iliad," under his pillow and during
+his waking moments would peruse its pages.
+
+But the high intellectual plane of present-day civilization demands more
+of us than the world demanded then, when the avenues to honor and to power
+lay over fields of conquest, and the passport to favor was the sword. The
+complex problems of today call for a more thorough cultivation of our
+mental powers, which, to bring into play upon the multifarious concerns of
+our life, is the object of broad education. A well cultivated mind makes a
+man monarch of all that he surveys; and no one can be said to be truly
+successful who has not invaded the empire of thought in search for the
+imperishable Fleece of Gold.
+
+Success, then, in the highest sense, is a full realization of the highest
+wealth of body, mind, and soul. And while it does not disparage material
+aggrandizement, it makes it subservient, ever looking to an equalization
+of the greater revenues of life. Like truth it consists in a right
+proportion of things; and like character, is inherent in the nature of the
+individual. Success must embrace all the cardinal virtues. It must arise
+from the harmonious and fullest use of all the faculties. In its essence,
+it is the aggregate of those things which we have acquired, and which we
+are putting to a wise and useful purpose. The way of life is strewn with
+those who have done fairly well. Excellence is the golden quality to seek.
+Success, like a commodity, has its price, and he who would have it must be
+willing to pay. You can not buy it on a bargain counter; it is a staple
+product and demands full value--the sublimest qualities of your being.
+
+  "In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves for a bright manhood,
+  there is no such words as--fail."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The Messenger of Fate
+
+"They Seized the Favorable Moment."
+
+
+
+    Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer
+  you.... It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried
+  forever, and to-morrow we may never see.
+
+  --Victor Hugo.
+
+
+  Master of human destinies am I;
+  Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
+  Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
+  Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
+  Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
+  I knock unbidden once at every gate;
+  If sleeping wake; if feasting, rise before
+  I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
+  And they who follow me reach every state
+  Mortals desire and conquer every foe
+  Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
+  Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
+  Seek me in vain and uselessly implore;
+  I answer not and I return no more.
+
+  --John J. Ingalls.
+
+
+
+
+Opportunity
+
+The famous statue, "Take Time by the Forelock," was a masterpiece of
+Greek sculpture. A noted Athenian orator, Callistratus, has given us a
+picture of the work of art: "Opportunity was a boy in the flower of his
+youth, handsome in mien, his hair fluttering at the caprice of the wind,
+leaving his locks disheveled. Like Dionysius, his forehead shone with
+grace, and his cheeks glowed with splendor. With winged feet to indicate
+swiftness, he stood upon a sphere, resting upon the tips of his toes as
+if ready for flight. His hair fell in thick curls from his brow, easy to
+take hold upon. But upon the back of his head there were only the
+beginnings of hairy growths, and, when he had once passed, it was not
+possible to seize him."
+
+An ancient legend gives us a more vivid idea of the significance of
+the statue:
+
+"Who art thou?"
+
+"Time, the all-subduer."
+
+"Why standest thou on tiptoe?"
+
+"I speed ever."
+
+"Why hast thou double wings on each foot?"
+
+"I fly with the wind."
+
+"But why is thy hair over thine eye?"
+
+"To be grasped by him who meets me."
+
+"The back of thy head, why is it bald?"
+
+"When once I have rushed by, with winged feet, one can never grasp me
+from behind."
+
+In its literal significance, however, opportunity means something either
+"in front of the door" or "outside of the harbor." For when the word first
+crept into common speech it created two pictures,--that of a ship with
+sails unfurled, riding at anchor, ready to start upon her unknown voyage,
+with just a moment to spare to catch her before the sails are bent; or the
+picture of a veiled figure standing for an instant at the door of one's
+life, knocking with sharp, swift strokes and then, if no answer comes,
+passing away into the darkness, refusing to be recalled.
+
+In all the vocabulary of human speech no other word rings with truer
+eloquence, or speaks with greater triumph, than that one
+word,--opportunity. Born in the primeval forest of man's first
+dwelling-place, it has marked the central path of civilization and hewn
+its way to the front with unerring stroke. The finger of destiny ever
+points back to this factor in human life as the primal element in all
+achievement, the forerunner of all success. Without it human genius
+would die, man's talent and skill waste away, and the hope of the race
+would vanish.
+
+Opportunity is the good angel that reveals the true issues of life,
+unfolding the bud of possibility into the full-blown flower of progress.
+It is the remorseless foe of sleepy monotony, awakening the passions in
+the soul, rousing our powers to action. At the door of your life and mine
+comes this silent, veiled figure, its hands laden with wealth, knocking
+for admission. But, alas! it has been too often with us as George Eliot
+with such tragic pathos has put it: "The golden moments in the stream of
+life rush past us and we see nothing but sand. The angels come to visit us
+and we know them only when they are gone."
+
+There has been no period of time since God whirled out of chaos this
+universe of wonders whose every moment did not hold for some one,
+somewhere, some kind of opportunity. Man is the only creature under heaven
+that has been privileged to walk with his face skyward to gaze upon the
+stars, to behold the opportunities of life as they surge along his
+pathway. In her wisdom, nature has given our eyes the power of both the
+telescope and the microscope, that we may see our opportunities afar and
+rightly discern them when they come within our reach.
+
+Do not regard your opportunities as mere visages floating in the horizon
+of your life, or autumn leaves driven by the winds of chance across your
+path. Every opportunity far from being a thing of chance, is a product of
+definite causes. Opportunity is unrealized possibility supplemented by
+conditions favorable for the execution of a purpose. And the power lies
+within you to create circumstances. That skillful artist, the human brain,
+draws a mental picture--an idea, the judgment approves, the will renders
+a decision to create that idea into actual being; in other words, gives it
+a soul, and then we have opportunity made real by the process of a
+creative force.
+
+We are apt to regard this quality in our existence as a somewhat
+superhuman term, an abstraction beyond the realm of common life, or at
+most an asset within the reach of a favored few; whereas it is a common
+attribute playing a potential part in our every-day activities. In its
+very nature opportunity is democratic and goes, like a wayfarer, knocking
+at the gates of every man's life.
+
+This messenger of fate, however, will not knock at the door of that man
+who is unable to meet the demands it would make upon him. It ever
+recognizes the eternal fitness of things, since it looks to its own
+promotion as well as the promotion of him who seeks to embrace it.
+Opportunity, then, is not opportunity at all if a man is not equal to it.
+When the steam engine lay in its elementary state in the great laboratory
+of nature, it was an opportunity for James Watt; and by his accepting it,
+opportunity realized its own fulfillment, became its own blessing and a
+blessing to all mankind. The unskilled laborer who dug out the ore could
+not claim this opportunity because he was not equal to its requirements.
+
+Moreover, every man is himself an opportunity of infinite greatness. And
+he who depends upon the world alone to furnish him opportunities is
+destined to meet with failure. Self-reliance is the passport to
+success. The man who is continually bemoaning a lack of opportunity
+acknowledges his own lack of resources--is wanting in creative force.
+Every golden moment is an opportunity for him to step out from the
+shadows into the sunshine. Optimism sees opportunity in the ordinary
+jog-trot of daily duty.
+
+One of the most valuable assets which we can possess is the ability to
+mold from the adverse circumstances about us our opportunities. And "a
+wise man," says Bacon, "will make more opportunities than he finds." When
+Michael Angelo takes the castaway rock which he finds in his path and
+carves from it "The Young David;" when Herschel at the midnight hour,
+after playing his violin for a living, goes out and studies the star-lit
+skies, the field of his immortal conquest; when Elihu Burritt, working at
+the forge, grapples with mathematics, and masters several languages; when
+obstacles are overcome, and adversity yields to the invincible wills of
+men, then has opportunity by this self-made principle been hewn out of
+the very stumbling blocks which were in the way.
+
+Every man is a treasury of untold wealth. He is not great merely for what
+he is, but for the greatness of his possibility--that undreamed grandeur
+which opportunity is ever seeking to reveal. True greatness does not
+emanate from the power of genius so much as it does from the wise
+discrimination which we exercise in the choice of our opportunities, and
+the intelligence with which we lay hold upon them. It is a fine art in
+life to know just the thing to do, and the opportune moment for doing it.
+Eternal vigilance is the price we must pay, and the constant whetting of
+our faculties.
+
+Our life is a succession of opportunities. Yet however numerous they may
+be, or however bright, they are not availing until placed into the
+crucible of experience. Gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds--all
+the precious jewels imbedded in the treasure-house of nature, become
+valuable to us only when we dig them out, polish and shape them for our
+use. Likewise our opportunities enrich us only as we reach out after them
+and make them an abiding element in our life.
+
+But to know one's opportunity when he sees it, is the secret of life's
+great problem. "Know thy opportunity," is the motto of Pittacus of
+Mitylene, one of the seven wise men. It is inscribed in the temple of
+Apollo at Delphi. And each day, in the temple of our memory, we should
+write it anew. For the practical question is not whether we are making the
+most of our opportunities, but whether we are conscious of them at all.
+
+Moreover, to know them _instantly_ as well as to know them instinctively
+is essential to our well-being. When Victor Hugo charges us to take all
+reasonable advantage of that which the present offers, he reveals the true
+character of opportunity. It lives only in the present tense, it knows no
+to-morrows, and makes a record of the yesterdays only when it has found
+lodgment in our lives.
+
+Suppose DeWitt Clinton, denounced and ridiculed, had been led into the
+belief that his idea was a mere phantom, a mystic nightmare, the Erie
+Canal would not be a reality. Suppose Robert Fulton had accepted the
+issuing vapor of the tea-kettle as a mere phenomenon without seeking in it
+the opportunity for a mighty purpose; suppose that Cyrus W. Field or
+Marconi, or Edison or Ericsson, or the hundreds of others who by their
+inventive genius have been a blessing to mankind, had been contented with
+simply dreaming of the stupendous undertakings which they achieved!
+
+It is the man who knows his opportunities when he sees them, who grips
+them as they pass, who stands at the door of his activities ready to
+welcome and turn to good account each new opportunity that comes, that is
+the typically successful man. Many young men have had noble ideas, backed
+by strong convictions, but failing to "strike while the iron was hot,"
+have let their convictions die, the mental picture of their ideals vanish,
+and to their sorrow have seen them wrought by another into reality.
+
+And below this class of men we will find a lower type--the man who is
+always waiting for something to turn up, and always missing it when it
+does. This is the man whom Dickens has immortalized in fiction in the
+familiar figure of Micawber. This class, however, is unmistakably
+diminishing in our day, but still there are many who seem to come just
+short of the prizes of life. They are always just too late for the
+opportunity that should have brought them fame and fortune.
+
+Shakespeare has aptly portrayed that supreme moment in life which we call
+opportunity:
+
+  "There is a tide in the affairs of men,
+  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
+  Omitted, all the voyage of their life
+  Is bound in shallows and in miseries."
+
+And the annals of human experience are filled and overflowing with
+achievements--examples of opportunities that were laid hold upon at just
+the critical moment of the tide.
+
+When the armies of Saul and Goliath were encamped in the valley of Elah,
+an opportunity was given to every soldier in Israel to meet the Philistine
+giant, but the youthful shepherd, David, alone accepted it, and his name
+has been praised for thirty centuries.
+
+An unlettered girl, a peasant in France, saw an opportunity to save the
+glory of her country, and with a courage that baffles human understanding
+Joan of Arc went forth to conquer.
+
+When George III of England ascended the throne and began to oppress the
+Colonists, an opportunity was created for the American people to act. With
+sublime patriotism they arose to the occasion in defense of their rights,
+and historians allude to the inspiring event as the opening scene in the
+Revolution.
+
+And when, by a stroke of diplomacy, Thomas Jefferson purchased from
+Napoleon Bonaparte the Louisiana Territory, one million square miles,
+or over six hundred millions of acres, for two cents and a half an
+acre, an opportunity was seized whose benefit to the American Nation no
+one can estimate.
+
+But if you would know a grand hero in whose life opportunity shone like
+Mars, read the life of Ulysses S. Grant--the man out of whose very
+failures evolved a most brilliant success. When, standing with leaden
+heart in the little store at Galena, the opportunity for a military life
+came knocking at the door, he welcomed it. For when morning broke on the
+12th of April, 1861, and the first guns of the Civil War roared upon
+Sumter, Grant marched to the front, and soon became a brigadier-general
+"The spur of disappointed hopes, the fire of his ambition, and the iron
+will that lay back of many of his failures--all the qualities latent in
+the man of coming greatness, sprang into mighty being."
+
+A gigantic opportunity next confronted him, for yonder on the banks of
+the Cumberland frowned the massive walls of Fort Donelson. Behind them
+Buckner's gray legions stood ready for action. It was the hour of fate.
+Grant pressed on, the Confederates surrendered the stronghold, and the
+first Union victory was won. Shiloh and Vicksburg, Cold Harbor and
+Petersburg, Richmond and Appomattox, and many other glorious victories
+tell the story of opportunities masterfully grasped.
+
+Our country is the land of "the golden fleece," and wherever you may be in
+its vast domain, you are the one who must answer for yourself the
+stupendous question--"To what height shall I attain?" You are like the man
+in the "Arabian Nights" dropped into a valley filled with diamonds. It is
+within your power to select that which is most valuable for your
+enrichment. There are splendid opportunities on every hand, and whether
+you shall grasp them or let them go, remains alone for you to determine.
+
+The door of opportunity for the highest development of every individual,
+in every phase of life, is ever open. Every golden moment holds something
+of value for the earnest seeker, just as every flower holds in its bosom a
+treasure for the thrifty bee. No one of us may ever have such splendid
+opportunities as did the illustrious ones to whom we owe our present
+inheritance. But at the threshold of our lives will ever come the veiled
+figure with its gifts, and, however modest may be the treasures which it
+brings, if we accept them and turn to good account all that they hold of
+value to us, our reward will be truly great.
+
+  "Pull many a gem of purest ray serene,
+    The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
+  Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
+    And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+The Active Hand
+
+"They Plied Their Oars With Vigor"
+
+
+  "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."
+
+  "Count that day lost whose low descending sun
+  Views from thy hand no worthy action done."
+
+
+
+The Individual Problem
+
+
+With steady, even, and vigorous stroke the young heroes from Hellas ply
+their oars, and the blue waters of the Euxine are flecked with foam. Here
+is an ideal picture. A band of enterprising young men, alert, active,
+ambitions--a scene typical of the highest conception of life. It has ever
+been scenes like this that have challenged the admiration of the world.
+And the plaudits of men and of angels attend the young man today who has a
+worthy object in view, who believes in himself, and bends to the oars with
+might and main.
+
+An "active hand" symbolizes usefulness and thrift. Has it ever occurred
+to you what a wonderful piece of mechanism is that hand with which Nature
+has equipped you for seizing the oars of life's activities? Galen, the
+famous anatomist, after a prolonged study of the human hand, conceiving
+it to be the proximate instrument of the soul, was forced to renounce
+atheism, to acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being. Scientists
+regard the human hand as being the most remarkable organ, not vital, in
+the whole animal kingdom.
+
+It is conceded to be, also, the most pronounced physical characteristic
+differentiating man from the lower animals. The chimpanzee and the
+gorilla, closely allied to the human species in many respects, are
+noticeably deficient in the use of their modified hands; being able to
+grasp things only in a cumbersome way. The squirrel handles a nut with
+agility, the beaver builds his dam, and likewise do many other animals
+accomplish much with certain deftness. But the grace, suppleness, and
+precision, so characteristic of the human hand, are lacking. Only in man
+does the organ attain perfection. He alone enjoys the distinction of being
+able to manipulate thumb and forefinger in combination, enabling him to
+attain a high degree of skill.
+
+The hand is the organ of the fifth and last sense, and the only one of the
+five which is active. When the other organs of sense fail it comes to
+their rescue--the blind man reads with his hand and the dumb man speaks
+with it. Being an active organ it gives expression to man's capabilities:
+Put a sword into it and it will fight, a plow and it will till, a harp and
+it will play, a brush and it will paint.
+
+The invention of every machine conceives its first principles in the
+structure of the human hand; and every working part of that machine bears
+a relation in its function to a corresponding part in the mechanism of the
+hand. In fact, physics teaches us that the hand is a combination of the
+six mechanical powers--the lever, the wedge, the wheel and axle, the
+pulley, the screw, and the inclined plane. But the mechanical effect is
+always depreciated. In manufacture hand-made goods excel those made by
+machine. In art the exquisite hand-painting surpasses the lithograph. No
+mechanical device, however efficacious, can produce symphonies or pictures
+or works of any kind with the high degree of excellence of which the hand
+is capable.
+
+But aside from its mechanical functions, this wonderful organ is a
+revelation of the secrets of human nature. Graphology enables us to read
+the character of a person in the hand-writing which he produces. Ages and
+ages ago the Hindus read the hand itself as the physical expression of the
+inner man; they read character by the science of palmistry as we read it
+by that of physiognomy; and some profess to translate the delicate tracery
+today into language that speaks clearly of both past and future. The hand
+is the expression of dishonesty when it steals, of charity when it gives,
+of anger when it smites, of love when it caresses. And one has called it
+the key to that cabinet of character in which Nature conceals, not only
+the motive power of every-day life, but those latent talents and energies
+that, by the knowledge of self, we can bring to bear upon our lives.
+
+So that this member of our physical organization holds an office of
+supreme dignity and importance in the issues of our lives. It is this
+marvel of mechanism, overruled and directed by the higher power of
+intellect, which elevates man to his high position. And, whether it be the
+hand of the galley slave, or the hand that sways the scepter over an
+empire, the supreme purpose is revealed-they are alike designed to be the
+instruments of usefulness and power.
+
+Even the brain cannot ignore the relative importance of the hand. It
+cannot say to the hand: "I have no need of thee." The captain cannot man
+his ship without the aid of subordinates. Neither can the brain pilot us
+through the activities of life without the aid of hands. A brilliant mind
+is a priceless possession; but all the mental acumen of the universe is
+not availing unless supplemented by those inferior officers--the hands.
+The clothes which you wear once were on the back of a sheep grazing on
+some distant hillside. The chair in which you sit once swayed in the
+forest midst the soughing winds. The pen with which I am writing once was
+imbedded deep in some far-away mountain range. But that occult genius--the
+human brain, conceived the idea of creating that wool, and wood, and ore
+into a higher state of usefulness, and at this juncture was compelled to
+acknowledge the infinite necessity of a co-worker; hence, the brain
+employs the hand as an external agent to put into force the impressions
+which it--the brain--receives from the phenomena of nature.
+
+Moreover, the law of your growth is contingent upon the exercise of these
+faculties. The brain is the judicial function and the hand the executive.
+Together these two powers qualify you for the master-workman. If you allow
+them to exist in the passive sense, you become an apathetic segment in
+the midst of a great world pulsing with life around you. You merely add
+one to the population, instead of counting for a potential and energizing
+influence. If you lift the weight of a clock the smallest fraction of an
+inch, the mechanism will cease to operate. And the relaxation of your will
+from the great obligation of life will cause your powers to atrophy and
+improperly to perform their work. With Browning, "Man was made to grow,
+not stop."
+
+Activity and not atrophy is the law of life. Action is the expression of
+that vital force called energy, and energy moves the world. The keynote of
+the natural world is action: the earth revolves, the river moves in its
+course, the tempest rages, the mountain acts from volcanic phenomena,
+vegetation grows, etc. In every tiny seed lies concealed this mysterious
+force--only a spark of life which, encouraged by nature, springs into a
+waving harvest.
+
+This very quality is synonymous with the reality of life. The human mind
+ostensibly has an aversion to lifelessness. We turn instinctively from
+the dead and withered branch to the blossoming flower; from the stagnant
+pool to the dashing cataract, and every healthy mind finds delight in
+such terms as vim, vigor, energy, and activity, which are the chief
+natural characteristics of the human hand. Demosthenes on being asked
+what is the first element in oratory, replied, "Action:" when asked to
+state the second element, he replied "Action," and when questioned as to
+the third, he made the same reply. Action, first, last, and all the time,
+is the great principle of life and progress. Without it the most perfect
+engine, gigantic in proportions and costly in equipment, is a dead
+thing, valueless as the formless mass of ore it once was. But that
+marvelous product of man's hand and brain, plus steam, becomes a
+veritable giant of power.
+
+Now this same law applies in relation to our bodies in general. Action is
+an essential as seen in the beating heart, the throbbing pulse, the
+coursing blood, and various other functions. In fact, the body is the
+engine that runs the machinery of our lives. Generating energy and storing
+it up, it gives impetus to all that we achieve. With all its mysteries,
+beauty, and strength, this human organism is worthless, a burden to
+society unless vitalized with that majestic force that makes man
+industrious.
+
+In the words of a great man, "Nature fits all her children with something
+to do." The first man on earth was a gardener. Milton hears Adam
+conversing with Eve thus:
+
+  "Man hath his daily work of body or mind
+  Appointed, which declares his dignity,
+  And the regard of Heaven on all his ways;
+  While other animals inactive range,
+  And of their doings God takes no account.
+  To-morrow ere fresh morning streaks the east
+  With first approach of light, we must be ris'n
+  And at our pleasant labor, to reform
+  Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green."
+
+Work is the great law of life. "No man," says Lowell, "is born into the
+world whose work is not born with him. There is always work and tools to
+work withal, for those who will; and blessed are the horny hands of toil."
+True work, the judicious employment of our powers for the accomplishment
+of the noblest object in life, is the only thing that will satisfy the
+waiting capacity of men and women. Neither gold nor scholarship nor any
+other acquisition can meet the requirement like the application of one's
+self to some kind of work. Work is a tonic which exuberates mentally,
+morally, and physically the man who wisely adjusts himself to it. And he
+who is able to work and refuses is out of harmony with nature.
+
+The cardinal question of life is that of achievement. In every human
+being there is the desire to rise to something great. The most
+thoughtless boy on the street looks serious as the Presidential carriage
+rolls past. In the deep recesses of his nature there is kindled by the
+spectacle a momentary yearning for fame--he would like to be President
+some day. Likewise does every man, when he seriously views the pageantry
+of life's ideals and purposes, have aspiration, for such is the natural
+state of man.
+
+The allurements of a passive life are known to them only who have no
+knowledge of the charms of an active life. Leisure is found only in the
+dictionary of the slothful. Dionysius is asked if he is at leisure, and
+rebukes the question, saying, "God forbid that it should ever befall me."
+The indulgence in the activities of life comprises not only ultimate
+accomplishment, but is productive of present enjoyment as well. And not
+infrequently does the pursuit of an object give more pleasure than the
+possession of it. Expectation often outshines experience. Therefore, all
+should cultivate a taste for work, which, through the alchemy of
+influence, transmutes duty into privilege.
+
+Moreover, it is fundamental in the law of success that one's pursuit must
+be congenial if he is to excel. On the contrary, however, lassitude can
+not be condoned if we find ourselves engaged in uncongenial employment. No
+kind of work, to the man who possesses dominion over his feelings and his
+faculties, is painful but proceeds with pleasure when once the habit of
+industry is acquired.
+
+Our efforts should not be casual, but causal. He who does most and does it
+well, becomes most. Horatius received as much land as he could plow around
+in a day. And you and I get each day just as much as, by putting our hand
+to the plow of activity, we are able to encompass by faithful plodding.
+Hard work is the price of all that is valuable. All the great strides in
+the world's achievements were made possible only by forced activity and
+prolonged effort. Spontaneity is a foreign element in the process of
+healthy and rugged development. The spider spins its web and the morning
+bespangles it with dew, creating a thing of beauty, but valueless. It
+would require the entire existence of several hundred silkworms to produce
+an equal amount of silk fabric. The mushroom grows up in a night, and dies
+in the glare of the morning sun; while the oak, struggling through the
+years, battling with the elements, lives a perpetual blessing to man.
+
+It is the intense struggle with the problems of life that produces in
+men the sturdy qualities. The short cuts to fame are few and not
+abiding. Success is not reached by a thornless path, but is attained by
+the path of plain, hard work. All things come to him who waits. Such is
+the very essence of an idle doctrine! All things come to him who works.
+Walter Scott working tirelessly in the attic while his companions below
+carouse the night away; Thoreau banishing himself into the lonely
+forest that he might prepare for larger usefulness; Dryden, "thinking
+on for a fortnight in a perfect frenzy;" Heyne, the German scholar,
+allowing himself "no more than two nights of weekly rest" for six
+months, that he might finish a course in Greek; Reynolds, the greatest
+portrait painter of England, applying his brush for thirty-six hours
+without stopping; Balzac, determined to be a king in literature,
+fighting his way with eternal diligence; William Pitt spurning
+difficulty and "trampling upon impossibility;" Elihu Burritt grappling
+with mathematics at the forge; or Isaac Newton turning his back upon a
+life of ease and setting off to college, where "the midnight wind swept
+over his papers the ashes of his long extinguished fire." These
+examples and thousands of others remind us that
+
+  "Heights by great men reached and kept
+    Were not attained by sudden flight;
+  But they while their companions slept,
+    Were toiling upward in the night."
+
+They had brains and hands too active, ambitions too aggressive,
+aspirations too lofty for a quiet existence, and they pressed their way
+onward and upward till they stood near the summit of a lofty ideal.
+
+When Xerxes, that great Persian monarch, seated upon a throne of ivory and
+gold, viewed for the last time the magnificent array of his armies and his
+fleets, we read that he buried his face in his hands and wept, because he
+had reached the zenith of his glory; his ambition had been spent, his work
+had come to an end. And more desolate should be the man to-day who does
+not feel the passion of an earnest life, who does not yearn for some noble
+activity. He who sits with folded arms in the craft of civilization to be
+borne idly along while others ply the oars, must soon part company with
+the brave, loyal sons of activity to launch his idle bark in the dead
+waters of life, where the currents never come and the winds of energy are
+never felt.
+
+  "At the flaming forge of life
+    Our fortunes must be wrought;
+  On its sounding anvil shaped,
+    Each burning deed and thought."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Ethics of Activity
+
+
+
+  "The busy world shoves angrily aside
+  The man who stands with arms akimbo set,
+  Till the occasion tells him what to do;
+  And he who waits to have his task marked out.
+  Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled."
+
+  --James Russell Lowell.
+
+
+A Man's Relation to Society
+
+This question of activity is a twofold problem. In the preceding chapter
+we viewed it from the standpoint of the individual--as if he were the sole
+occupant of the boat, rowing toward a purely selfish end; going, as it
+were, in quest of the prize of life for purely personal aggrandizement.
+Whereas, strictly speaking, no man exists in a purely individualistic
+sense. He can not regard himself as separable from a social whole. Every
+individual is a vital element of an organized force working toward a
+mutual end. You are an integral factor, so to speak, of the social
+problem, but your value is determined by your relation to other quantifies
+in the complex system with which you are identified. As a segregated unit,
+you diminish in value.
+
+A combination of diverse and multi-form contributions assimilated from a
+complex human life, your being looks to many sources for its development;
+from the lowest phase of experience to the highest. These influences you
+must acknowledge as emanating from a social system--influences which you
+are totally powerless, alone, to exert upon yourself. For instance, a man
+can not be his own educator in all that the term implies--he can not make
+his own books, print his own newspapers; if he could he would have to look
+outside of himself for the data necessary for his use. In other words, no
+man lives to himself alone. He can no more be separated from the social
+order of things and retain character value, than any one of a hundred
+square inches of canvas in an oil painting, separated from the rest, would
+constitute a picture. A single note in a musical composition, however
+exquisite the piece may be, has comparatively little value taken by
+itself; only when it assumes relationship with other notes and becomes
+governed by the law of harmony, does it fulfill its mission and become a
+valuable factor.
+
+Then, as units of a social whole, we have obligations other than those
+affecting "individual" problems. Society has a rightful claim upon every
+one of its members. "You are not your own, you are bought with a price,"
+is true in a larger sense than a merely Scriptural one. For what one
+becomes is really, as already stated, but the effect of combined
+influences brought to bear upon one's life by the forces of human society.
+Therefore, society expects us to reciprocate, and is just in its claim;
+just as parents are entitled to the high esteem and reciprocation of their
+offspring. It demands of each one of us all that we are capable of
+producing, exacting the highest order of service as well. The paying of
+taxes does not placate the demands which society makes upon you. It
+demands yourself--body, mind, and soul--not in a passive sense, but in
+active relationship to your environment. And every man is morally bound
+to respect the claims thus made upon him.
+
+The highest socialistic conception is not that which contemplates an
+equitable distribution of property and labor. But assuming a more rational
+ground, it believes in equal rights to all; is based upon a right
+proportion of motives rather than upon the equalization of property
+considerations. It is both humanitarian and utilitarian. It seeks its own
+principally, yet is generous in the ulterior aim. This is the ideal
+relation between the individual and the social order. The greatest duty
+confronting each one in the world, and the one which all should earnestly
+embrace, is the duty of making the most of one's self with the ulterior
+view of contributing the largest measure of usefulness to his fellow-men.
+
+On the other hand, to employ an extreme example--and yet it is shown by
+statistics that there are one hundred thousand tramps and vagrants in this
+country--the man who folds his arms and defiantly proclaimes that the
+world owes him a living, mutinies against the sacred order of
+things--"fouls his own nest," as it were. To that man society replies: "If
+any man is not willing to work, neither let him eat." And this is the
+dominant note of the twentieth century as truly as it was in the first
+when spoken by the Roman philosopher. To harbor the doctrine that the
+world owes every man a living, not only discounts the character value of
+the individual, but has a reflex action on the entire social organism.
+Just as one wheel out of play in the mechanism of a watch throws the
+entire works out of order, or one team in a procession halting the whole
+train behind it, the individual failing to do his part affects the
+equilibrium of the whole. Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo and died in
+exile, a prisoner at St. Helena, because one of his marshals, failing to
+comply with orders, arrived too late with re-enforcements. Remember that
+you have an important part to perform, that, as in mathematics, you are a
+quantity so connected with another quantity that if any alteration be made
+in the former there will be a consequent alteration in the latter.
+
+In the busy hive of twentieth-century civilization scant space has been
+provided for drones. The drone is a minus quantity in the problem of life;
+instead of adding to the common weal, he is ever subtracting from it. Like
+an owl he sits in the gloom of indolence hooting at the caravan of events.
+The eye of the world is quick to observe the man who is resting on his
+oars. A more graphic picture of the man who is ever magnifying the world's
+duty to him, and minimizing his duty to the world, could not be painted
+than that one which James Russell Lowell has penned:
+
+  "The busy world shoves angrily aside
+  The man who stands with arms akimbo set."
+
+The world has but one duty to this man, namely, to dispel the cloud from
+his vision and arouse him to worthy action.
+
+To contend that the world owes every man a living would be as
+preposterous as to assert that the government owes every citizen under the
+flag a pension. The world owes no man anything except that for which he
+pays a just equivalent. Every man is indebted to the world; he owes it all
+his best possessions--his talent, time, and effort. And the individual who
+attempts to throw off this yoke of duty is violating one of nature's great
+laws. Even the lower forms of life afford example of this supreme law.
+Solomon startles the sluggard with his sharp admonition to betake himself
+to the ant. And Sir John Lubbock points men to the insect world to learn
+real diligence and thrift.
+
+Individual stagnation means public pollution. The man who arms himself
+with a "rake," ever reaching out after something without giving an
+equivalent, instead of championing the "hoe," determined to exercise his
+faculties in the interests of humanity, becomes hostile to the noblest
+sentiment and the highest aims of society; as in the case of the tramps
+mentioned above who are a national menace, Idleness breeds vice. Industry
+enhances the virtues. When a man ceases to work he retrogrades; he becomes
+a stranger to lofty ideals and wholesome activities. The man with an
+ambition ever finds himself in the ascendency; while he who deplores the
+exercise of his powers, avoiding work as he would a powder magazine or a
+pest, is in the descendency toward a state of groveling and low ideals.
+And the difference between these two men marks the difference between
+success and failure.
+
+We are ever obligated to a great duty, namely, to reach the maximum of our
+possibilities. Our greatest prerogative in the economy of life is the wise
+husbanding of resources, and the skillful marshaling of our forces on the
+field of common duty. The great duty of leading a useful life confronts us
+always. We can by no stratagem, whatsoever, escape its presence. We ever
+hear its voice calling after us, and can no more flee from it than we can
+flee from the voice of conscience. Like Poe's raven, it sets up a never
+ceasing appeal at the door of our lives. Prudence forbids that we turn our
+back on this duty of self-devotion. For as Michael Angelo saw in the block
+of marble the hidden angel, a wise man sees in duty an infinite
+opportunity.
+
+Galileo was so absorbed in his pursuit that he forgot personal comfort and
+even personal safety, and lost his eyesight in quest of the mountains in
+the moon, the rings around Saturn and the "star-heaps" in the sky. And
+when that distinguished man of science, Professor Agassiz, was invited to
+lecture at a great price, his reply was, "I have no time to make money."
+Likewise did the great Spurgeon, when offered almost fabulous prices to
+cross the Atlantic and lecture, refuse because of a zealous devotion to
+the purpose of his life. And every one should learn that the thorough and
+faithful performance of duty is the first essential of a worthy life.
+
+Every human soul was made with some design, invested with the possibility
+of a useful life, a noble destiny. Whether it be the mercenary Greek
+vending his wares on the street corner, or the roaming Italian with his
+harp strapped over his shoulder, or the dissolute man behind prison bars
+paying the penalty of misspent days--all are invested with latent power
+and talent to fill a loftier place in the world. But, unfortunately, while
+most men have the desire, not all have the determination to rise above the
+ordinary and the common state in which they find themselves. This is a
+deplorable condition, seriously detracting from the sum of human
+greatness.
+
+Every man has been called for dominion. Each, in the divine plan, is to be
+a ruler in the universe, not a "mollusk with aimless revery;" he is to be
+a man with vitality, not "dead matter known only as avoirdupois." By this
+measure a man is not worth so much as a sheep which furnishes two
+substantial commodities--food and clothing. Minus the attributes which
+qualify him for a high rank, man is a being with a buried talent, only a
+unit in the great world around him. Plus these attributes, no system of
+mathematics can compute his worth.
+
+  "Let me but do my work from day to day,
+    In field or forest, at the desk or loom,
+    In roaring market place, or tranquil room;
+  Let me but find it in my heart to say,
+  When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
+    'This is my work; my blessing not my doom;
+    Of all who live I am the one by whom
+  This work can best be done in the right way.'"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Fleece of Gold, by Charles Stewart Given
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLEECE OF GOLD ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fleece of Gold, by Charles Stewart Given
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+Title: A Fleece of Gold
+       Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece
+
+Author: Charles Stewart Given
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8881]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 20, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLEECE OF GOLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+A Fleece of Gold
+
+Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece
+
+by
+
+Charles Stewart Given
+
+1905
+
+
+
+Second Edition Revised
+
+
+
+To my sons
+Kingsley and Gordon
+
+
+  "Jason and his men seized the favorable moment of the rebound, plied
+  their oars with vigor, and passed through in safety."
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+  I. The Ruling Element, "Jason and his men."
+
+ II. The Golden Quality, "They passed through."
+
+III. The Messenger of Fate, "They seized the favourable moment."
+
+ IV. The Active Hand, "They plied their oars with vigor."
+
+  V. Ethics of Activity
+
+
+
+
+Foreword
+
+
+
+Among the smaller forces which operate upon the mind and tend toward
+strengthening and exalting the best ideals, are little books like this.
+They are especially valuable when so much of the author's own experience
+forms a thread upon which are suspended jewels of thought and illustration
+serviceable to those who would see and know the best things.
+
+I have found these characteristics in this small volume, and gladly
+recommend it to all those who would become more familiar with what our
+author calls "the key to that cabinet of character in which nature
+conceals not only the motive power of every-day life, but those latent
+talents and energies that, through a knowledge of self, we can bring to
+bear upon our lives." This book will help many who have small
+opportunities in the form of time and money to expend in the use of
+larger volumes.
+
+Charles Stewart Given
+
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+
+
+The fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece is known to old and young the
+world around. To the latter, perhaps, no other simple narrative in
+Greek mythology is more fascinating, nor holds a more valuable lesson
+if they will but seek to learn it. But especially to the boy or young
+man of thoughtful mind does the glorious adventure appeal and make its
+lessons obvious. By way of refreshing the memory of those who were once
+familiar with the myth, but who, in the practical school of experience,
+have lost the chord of their adventure-loving days; and also for those,
+perchance, who are not acquainted with the tale, a brief sketch will
+here serve our purpose.
+
+In Thessaly dwell a king and a queen with their two children, a boy and a
+girl. The holy alliance between the two royal members of the household
+becomes disrupted, and Nephele, the good mother, appeals to Mercury, the
+messenger of the gods, to assist her in secretly placing the children out
+of reach of their father, the king. Mercury provides a ram with a golden
+fleece, on which the boy and girl are placed. The shining creature springs
+into the air, bearing its precious burden across the sea. Unfortunately,
+the girl falls from the ram's back and is drowned, but the boy is landed
+safely on the other shore in the kingdom of Colchis. Here he sacrifices
+the ram to Jupiter and presents the golden fleece to the king, who places
+it in a consecrated grove under the care of a sleepless dragon.
+
+Now Jason is heir to the throne of Æson, ruler of another kingdom in
+Thessaly, from whence the royal children started on their adventurous
+journey. Years have passed, however, since this remarkable incident, and
+Jason, being now a young man and having been told the dramatic tale of
+the Golden Fleece, begins to think what a glorious adventure it would be
+to go in quest of the royal prize. Forthwith he makes preparations for
+the expedition, and with a band of other lusty young heroes starts on a
+sea voyage toward the land of the Colchian king. It is not without
+difficulty, however, that they accomplish the voyage, for at the entrance
+of the Euxine Sea they encounter two floating islands, veritable
+mountains of rock, huge and shaggy, which, in their tossings and
+heavings, at intervals come together "crushing and grinding to atoms any
+object that might be caught between them." But "_Jason and his men seized
+the favorable moment of the rebound, plied their oars with vigor and
+passed through in safety_."
+
+Approaching the royal palace Jason makes known his mission, whereupon
+the king promises to relinquish the valuable possession if Jason will
+yoke to the plow two fire-breathing bulls and sow the teeth of the
+dragon. Apprehending that by this means the king seeks to destroy him,
+Jason pleads his cause to Medea, the king's daughter, who furnishes him
+a charm by which he can safely encounter the fiery breath of the beasts
+and the armed men that will spring up in the furrow where the dragon's
+teeth are sown.
+
+In his "Age of Fable," Bullfinch gives us a graphic picture of the scene:
+"At the time appointed the people assembled at the grove of Mars, and the
+king assumed his royal seat, while the multitude covered the hill-sides.
+The brazen-footed bulls rushed in, breathing fire from their nostrils that
+burned up the herbage as they passed. The sound was like the roar of a
+furnace, and the smoke like that of water upon quick-lime. Jason advanced
+boldly to meet them. His friends, the chosen heroes of Greece, trembled to
+behold him. Regardless of the burning breath, he soothed their rage with
+his voice, patted their necks with fearless hand, and adroitly slipped
+over them the yoke, and compelled them to drag the plow. The Colchians
+were amazed; the Greeks shouted for joy. Jason next proceeded to sow the
+dragon's teeth and plow them in. And soon the crop of armed men sprang up,
+and, wonderful to relate! no sooner had they reached the surface than they
+began to brandish their weapons and rush upon Jason. The Greeks trembled
+for their hero, and even she who had provided him a way of safety and
+taught him how to use it, Medea herself, grew pale with fear. Jason for a
+time kept his assailants at bay with his sword and shield, till finding
+their numbers overwhelming, he resorted to the charm which Medea had
+taught him, seized a stone and threw it in the midst of his foes. They
+immediately turned their arms against one another, and soon there was not
+one of the dragon's brood left alive."
+
+Having complied with all the conditions set forth by the king, the victor
+now turns with eager step toward the grove of Mars, and seizing the golden
+prize makes his way back to Thessaly, rejoicing in his glorious success.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+The Ruling Element
+
+
+
+"Jason and His Men."
+
+
+    What constitutes a state?
+  Not high-raised battlements or labored mound,
+    Thick wall or moated gate;
+  Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
+    Not bays and broad armed ports,
+  Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
+    Not starred and spangled courts,
+  Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
+    No! men--high-minded men--
+  With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
+    In forest, brake, or den,
+  As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude.
+
+  --Sir William Jones.
+
+
+
+
+The Young Man
+
+
+Jason has just stepped over the threshold into the glory of a rich young
+manhood. And he is careful to select for his expedition some of the
+choicest heroes of Greece--young, brave, and strong. It has ever been
+thus. Youth has always been synonymous with adventure. It is a condition
+which seems inherent; nature instilling into the blood of her sons the
+very spirit of discontent--of longing to push out from the commonplace
+scenes of childhood into broader domains of experience.
+
+The very books which most fascinate the boy are those which deal in
+thrilling tales of adventure. The wily and unscrupulous traffickers in
+cheap literature have ever been awake to this fact, and their
+highly-colored productions have been flung from the vicious presses like
+lava from Pelée to pollute the minds of the young. Why is it that
+"Robinson Crusoe" and stories of this character hold such a charm for
+young people, lingering in their minds long after books of a profounder
+type have been forgotten? It is the love of adventure. To what boy at
+school does not the doleful history lesson assume a more brilliant aspect
+when the adventures of Columbus are taken up? His interest is awakened,
+his imagination inspired, and he is delighted, all because again that
+chord in his nature has been struck--the love of adventure.
+
+Perhaps no other single painting in the art galleries at the World's Fair
+of 1893 attracted the attention of a greater number of people, nor
+awakened in so many human breasts a feeling of such intense pathos as
+Thomas Hovenden's painting on "Breaking Home Ties." Here we have it once
+more, adventure--Jason setting off on his journey in search for the golden
+fleece of fame and fortune. The narrow path that so long has led him out
+into the silent acres--the fields that so many years have responded to
+his toil--he has forsaken. The dull routine has ceased to inspire, the
+home circle has become too narrow for his expanding soul. He has caught a
+glimpse of the glories of a new kingdom, and now he is going out to
+realize them.
+
+The young man has always been the _ruling element_ in every new departure.
+He has been the rock upon which the ages have been founded. In the words
+of another: "When the roll-call which men have written is read, it will be
+found that the young men have ruled the world. The oldest literatures have
+this record. The patriarchs unfolded the careers of boys into the conquest
+of old age. Kingdom and empire rode upon the shoulders of young men, and
+their voices of enthusiasm and hope have sounded through many a
+black-breasted midnight and trumpeted the dawn through skies of thickest
+darkness. To causes that drooped they have come and added the raptures of
+hope; to enterprises that were sickening and faint they have brought the
+bounding power of new enthusiasm. To the dead they have brought life.
+Everything from the foundation of the world has been crying for 'young
+blood,' and the armies of the advance have gained the day at the arrival
+of 'recruits,' whose hope and earnestness have never been defeated. Age
+and experience put themselves upon dying pillows made by young hands; into
+young palms and upon young ears falls the meaning of all the past; and
+thus God has written the natural dignity of the young man's life in the
+eternal statute book of the universe." [Footnote: From "Young Men of
+History," by Dr. F.W. Gunsaulus.]
+
+We have but to turn our gaze back over the centuries to find that it has
+always been the young man who has embarked in the world's great
+enterprises. If we turn the pages of religious history we shall find that
+he has been potent there. For when the stream of Hebrew destiny was to be
+turned, a young man, Joseph, who had been sold as a slave into Egypt, was
+selected to accomplish it. And later young Saul of Kish while roaming
+through his father's fields was summoned to a throne. It was the young
+shepherd boy--David--that was chosen "to keep the banner of Israel in the
+sky while the shadows hung black above the hills of Judah." When the
+gospel was to be borne to the Gentiles the divine finger fell upon a young
+tent-maker of Tarsus. Fourteen centuries later a miner's son, Martin
+Luther, won Germany for the Reformation, and John Wesley "while yet a
+student in college" started his mighty world-famous movement. At fifteen
+John de Medici was a cardinal, and Bossuet was known by his eloquence; at
+sixteen Pascal wrote a great work. Ignatius Loyola before he was thirty
+began his pilgrimage, and soon afterward wrote his most famous books. At
+twenty-two Savonarola was rousing the consciences of the Florentines, and
+at twenty-five John Huss was an enthusiastic champion of truth.
+
+But we see the young man standing before the footlights on the stage of
+secular history, too. At twelve Remenyi was making his violin tremulous
+with melody, and Cæsar delivered an oration at Rome; at thirteen Henry M.
+Stanley was a teacher; at fourteen Demosthenes was known as an orator; at
+fifteen Robert Burns was a great poet, Rossini composed an opera, and
+Liszt was a wizard in music. At the age of sixteen Victor Hugo was known
+throughout France; at seventeen Mozart had made a name in Germany, and
+Michael Angelo was a rising star in Italy. At eighteen Marcus Aurelius was
+made a consul; at nineteen Byron was the "amazing genius" of his time; at
+twenty Raphael had finished some of his most famous paintings, Faraday was
+attracting the attention of his country, and two years later was admitted
+to the Royal Institution of Great Britain. At twenty-one Alexander the
+Great conquered the Persians, Beethoven was entrancing the world with his
+music, and William Wilberforce was in Parliament. At twenty-two William
+Pitt had entered Parliament, while William of Orange had received from
+Charles V command of an army. At twenty-three William E. Gladstone had
+denounced the Reform Bill at Oxford, and two years afterward became First
+Junior Lord of the Treasury, and Livingstone was exploring the continent.
+At twenty-four Sir Humphrey Davy was Professor of Chemistry in the Royal
+Institution, Dante, Ruskin, and Browning had become famous writers. At
+twenty-five Hume had written his treatise on Human Nature, Galileo was
+lecturer of science at the University of Pisa, and Mark Antony was the
+"hero of Rome." At twenty-six Sir Isaac Newton had made his greatest
+discoveries; at twenty-seven Don John of Austria had won Lepanto, and
+Napoleon was commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. At twenty-eight
+Æschylus was the peer of Greek tragedy, at twenty-nine Maurice of Saxony
+the greatest statesman of the age, and at thirty Frederick the Great was
+the most conspicuous character of his day. At the same age Richelieu was
+Secretary of State, and Cortez little older when he gazed on the "golden
+Cupolas" of Mexico. These are a few of the splendid names that illumine
+the pages of history across the sea.
+
+But the young man has been no less potent in the affairs of our own
+Nation, which has always been conspicuous for its production of truly
+great men. The story is told that when one of England's great men was
+visiting Henry Clay, and the two were riding over the country, the
+distinguished guest inquired of his host, "What do you raise on these
+hills and in these beautiful valleys?" "Men," was Clay's reply; and the
+English patriot declared that this was the greatest crop to enrich a
+country. We boast that we have given the world a full quota of really
+great young men, some of them like Jason embarking on the sea of adventure
+while the dew of extreme youth is still on their brow. If we wend our way
+back through the grand procession of events of but a single century we
+will find extreme youth marking out the lines of progress and directing
+the course of the nation in politics, in literature and religion.
+
+We would see William Prescott, a boy of twelve, diligently at work in the
+Boston Athenaeum, or Jonathan Edwards at thirteen entering Yale College,
+and while yet of a tender age shining in the horizon of American
+literature; while the same age finds H. W. Longfellow writing for the
+Portland _Gazette_. At fourteen John Quincy Adams was private secretary to
+Francis H. Dana, American Minister to Russia; at fifteen Benjamin Franklin
+was writing for the _New England Courant_, and at an early age became a
+noted journalist. Benjamin West at sixteen had painted "The Death of
+Socrates," at seventeen George Bancroft had won a degree in history,
+Washington Irving had gained distinction as a writer. At eighteen
+Alexander Hamilton was famous as an orator, and one year later became a
+lieutenant-colonel under Washington. At nineteen Washington himself was a
+major, Nathan Hale had distinguished himself in the Revolution, Bryant had
+written "Thanatopsis," and Bayard Taylor was engaged in writing his first
+book, "Views Afoot." At twenty Richard Henry Stoddard had found a place in
+the leading periodicals of his day, John Jacob Astor was in business in
+New York, and Jay Gould was president and general manager of a railroad.
+At twenty-one Edward Everett was professor of Greek Literature at Harvard,
+and James Russell Lowell had published a whole volume of his poems; at
+twenty-two Charles Sumner had attracted the attention of some of the
+famous men of his day, William H. Seward had entered upon a brilliant
+political career, while Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau occupied
+a conspicuous place in literature. At twenty-three James Monroe was a
+member of the Executive Council, and one year later was elected to
+Congress; at twenty-four Thomas A. Edison and Richard Jordan Gatling were
+inventors. At twenty-five John C. Calhoun made the famous speech that gave
+him a seat in the Legislature, George William Curtis had traversed Italy,
+Germany, and the Orient and soon after became known by his books of
+travel. At twenty-six Thomas Jefferson occupied a seat in the House of
+Burgesses, John Quincy Adams was minister to The Hague; at twenty-seven
+Patrick Henry was known as the "Orator of Nature," and Robert Y. Hayne was
+speaker in the Legislature of South Carolina. At twenty-eight Edward
+Everett Hale had found a place in the hearts and minds of the people, and
+at twenty-nine John Jay, youngest member of the Continental Congress, was
+chosen to draw up the address to the British Nation.
+
+These illustrious ones, who before their thirtieth year had written their
+names on the immortal banner of their country, are only a few which adorn
+the pages of our early history. Others of like purport might be added
+indefinitely both from the early and the later life of our country. And
+there has been no time when the young man played so important a rôle in
+human affairs as he does to-day in the dawn of the twentieth century,
+when the heart and the mind, philanthropy and literature, virtue and
+truth, science and art, capital and labor are the principal factors in the
+world's progress. To refer to but a single instance in this period of our
+national life, there is no greater statesman and patriot than our beloved
+President, Theodore Roosevelt,--a young man to whom we are proud to point
+as a true type of American greatness and American manhood. Assuming
+control of the Nation at such a critical moment in her history, when so
+many dangerous rocks lay in her course, tremendous, indeed, was the
+responsibility thrust upon him. But by his inherent principle of rule, his
+unquenchable patriotism, his indomitable purpose, and the imperiousness of
+his will, founded on a rich scholarship and a broad policy, he has spelled
+triumph out of difficulty, and his name will go down in twentieth-century
+history an example of illustrious young manhood.
+
+The young man is emphatically the _ruling element_ in politics to-day. It
+is estimated that a sufficient number of young men come of age every four
+years to control the issue of the Presidential election. Constituting
+about one-half of the present voting population, they hold far more than
+the balance of political power. It was Goethe who said that the destiny of
+any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of the young men who
+are under twenty-five years of age. And William E. Gladstone affirmed that
+the sum of the characters of this element constitute the character and
+strength of any country.
+
+And when we consider the young man in his relation to all the aspects of
+life--civic, commercial, industrial, and social--we must recognize him as
+the _ruling element_. Like Jason, the young man of to-day is the hero to
+invade the empire of thought and action in quest of the Fleece of Gold.
+
+  "Lives of great men all remind us,
+  We can make our lives sublime;
+  And departing leave behind us
+  Footprints on the sands of time."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The Golden Quality
+
+"They Passed Through."
+
+
+
+  To live content with small means:
+  To seek elegance rather than luxury, and
+  Refinement rather than fashion;
+  To be worthy, not respectable,
+  Wealthy, not rich;
+  To study hard, think quietly,
+  Talk gently, act frankly;
+  To listen to stars and birds, to
+  Babes and sages, with open heart;
+  To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
+  Await occasions, hurry never,--
+  In a word, to let the spiritual,
+  Unbidden and unconscious,
+  Grow up through the common--
+  This is to be my symphony.
+
+  --Channing.
+
+
+Success
+
+
+In every land and in every age since the curtain first rose on the world's
+great drama men have been in quest of the Fleece of Gold. The onward
+progress of the race since our rude forefathers from the leaves of the
+tree formed their clothes, and in the somber depths of the primeval forest
+constructed their habitation, is due to an insatiable desire to possess
+the coveted prize. Hanging before man's gaze in the consecrated borders of
+his existence, it has inspired him to greater usefulness. He has built
+ships and traversed the seas, invented machines, reared cities, and
+established laws. In science and art and literature he has vied with his
+fellow-man and given a mighty impulse to civilization, all for the Fleece
+of Gold--success.
+
+The world worships at the shrine of success. It regards it as man's
+greatest attribute. And whether we find it in secular affairs,
+substantiated by material grandeur, or in the mysterious realms of the
+inner life characterized by the serene consciousness of truth, it must
+ever be the goal of human aspiration.
+
+It is the thought of some day having their efforts crowned that causes men
+hotly to pursue the phantom or the reality of their lives. This aspiration
+keeps the torch of hope ablaze in the midnight darkness, and the spirits
+buoyed under the noon-day glare, while men forge on to the goal. The
+surging throngs of a great city, the active hands and brains in the
+bee-hives of industry and the many places of business, the vast army of
+seekers after knowledge in the schools and colleges throughout the land,
+the men of fame in the halls of Congress molding the affairs of the
+Nation, the countless army tilling the fields under the open sky, the
+legions in the dark caves of earth searching for treasure--all are seeking
+to enter the golden gate of success.
+
+Said Mr. A. B. Farquhar in a baccalaureate address to the students of
+McDonough College: "Success colors everything. It is the essence of all
+excellencies, the latent power which compels the 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, at the expense of breadth, richness, and beauty, appear as
+mad as the Crusades, and perhaps of a lower type of madness? Could
+anything be more indicative of a slight but general insanity than the
+aspect of the crowd on the streets of Chicago?" Why is it that the poems
+that have lived for centuries, and the masterpieces of the world's great
+painters and sculptors are not being equaled in the dawn of the twentieth
+century? The answer lies in the widespread devotion to realism instead of
+idealism. The immortals have joined the mortals in search for the Fleece
+of Gold. And Wordsworth's oft-quoted lines were never more applicable to
+us than now:
+
+  The world is too much with us; late and soon,
+  Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.
+
+All the capital in the universe does not stand for success unless there is
+set over against it the wealth of soul which Marcus Aurelius, that great
+apostle of plain living and high thinking, ever set forth as an antidote
+to the treadmill grind of commercial life. Shakespeare struck the keynote
+of this lofty conception of life, and pronounced a never-dying eulogy upon
+the supreme dignity of character when he said:
+
+  "Who steals my purse steals trash; ...
+  But he that filches from me my good name
+  Robs me of that which not enriches him,
+  And makes me poor indeed."
+
+Wealth of soul is incomparably better than all that can be obtained from
+pomp and luxury. Charlemagne is said to have worn in his crown a nail
+taken from the cross on which the Savior was crucified. He wore it among
+the jewels of his diadem as a reminder that there existed a tenderer
+relation in life than kingdoms and material splendor. Thus in the crown of
+our success, if we would make it truly great, we must place the sublimer
+elements of our being. As the ivy softens the roughness of the mountain
+side and the unsightly ruin, so will the aesthetic mellow and subdue the
+intense commercialism with which we are surrounded. Without this quality
+our success becomes like the fabled apples on the brink of the Dead
+Sea--fair without, but ashes within.
+
+If the avenue to success lay in one direction only--that of accumulating a
+fortune, little incentive would be felt by those in the lower walks of
+life. Moreover, if it were possible for all men to become millionaires,
+the very organization of human society would become disrupted; for who
+then would till the soil, run the factories, clean the streets? Nature has
+been wise in the distribution of her talents. Anticipating the havoc of
+endowing all mankind with equal powers, she established a wide diversity
+in the range of human ability. To one she has given the gift of sagacity
+to achieve success in the world of trade; to another mechanical skill to
+create the ideals of inventive genius into reality; to another the highly
+artistic sense, and withholding these higher attributes from still others,
+she has chosen to endow them with a wealth of muscular force that the
+physical requirements of organized human effort might be made effective.
+So that any way we choose to look at this question we must concede that
+temporal wealth does not constitute the broadest idea of success, nor is
+capable in itself of producing it.
+
+Even failure may be an element of a glorious success. The volcano that
+pours its vengeance upon the fair plantation below, leaving wreck and ruin
+in its path, bestows a wealth of sulphur which plays an important part in
+the world of commerce. The same frost that kills the harvest of a season
+also destroys the locust, preserving the harvests of a century. The death
+of the cocoon is the production of the silk, and the failure of the
+caterpillar the birth of the butterfly. If the boy Newton had not failed
+utterly on the farm, he would never have been started in college to become
+the mighty man of science. The fall of Rome meant the rise of the German
+Empire. "All men," says Frederick Arnold, "need through errors attain to
+truth, through struggles to victory, through regrets to that sorrow which
+is a very source of life. Men must rise in an ever-ascending scale, like
+the ladder of St. Augustine, by which men, through stepping-stones of
+their dead selves rise to higher things; or those steps of Alciphron,
+which crumbled away into nothingness as fast as each foot-fall left
+them." Thus our very failures we may overrule and convert into
+stepping-stones to success. Lifted to a loftier sphere, to a nobler
+experience, we are apt to receive greater benefit than though we escaped
+disappointment and rejoiced in easy fruition.
+
+Success does not consist in not encountering difficulties, but in
+overcoming them. If Jason is to have the golden fleece he must pass
+between the dangerous rocks, he must encounter the dragon, yoke to the
+plow the fire-breathing bulls, and subdue a regiment of armed men. If
+Joseph had not been Egypt's prisoner, he would never have been Egypt's
+governor. If Millet had not passed through the valley of sorrow, he could
+never have painted the "Angelus." The Restoration in England that gave
+Charles II a throne, drove Milton into absolute seclusion, and the last
+twelve years of his life were passed in enforced isolation. But this
+blind, deserted, broken-hearted, but illustrious scholar and poet,
+conquered despair, triumphed over every misfortune, and gave to the world
+those three great poems which have made his name immortal. Even poverty,
+which has been a hardship to the individual, has proved a boon to himself
+and to the cause of humanity. Science teaches us that ordinary mud has in
+it elements which, arranged according to the higher laws of nature,
+produce the opal, the sapphire, and the diamond. Likewise does history
+teach us that from the morass of poverty the commonest types of men have
+passed from stage to stage through the refining processes of experience
+till they have dazzled the world with their magnificence. Whether it be a
+slave like Æsop, a beggar like Homer, a peasant like Raphael, or a
+marble-cutter like Socrates, we see them at last wearing the diadem of a
+brilliant success.
+
+In fact, the foremost in all nations and in all branches have, as a rule,
+risen from the ranks of the poor and lowly. Shakespeare held horses for a
+few pennies a night in front of a London theater, and later did menial
+service back of the scenes. Disraeli was an office boy, Carlyle a
+stone-mason's attendant, and Ben Jonson was a bricklayer. Morrison and
+Carey were shoemakers, Franklin was a printer's apprentice, Burns a
+country plowman, Stephenson a collier, Faraday a bookbinder, Arkwright a
+barber, and Sir Humphrey Davy a drug clerk. Demosthenes was the son of a
+cutler, Verdi the son of a baker, Blackstone the son of a draper, and
+Luther was the son of a miner. Butler was a farmer, Hugh Miller a
+stone-cutter, Abraham Lincoln a rail-splitter, and James Garfield was a
+canal boy. One-half of the Presidents of the United States were left
+orphans at an early age, left to make their way through the world alone.
+History reveals clearly that it has been not the sons of the rich, but
+the sons of poverty that have "compelled the favor of fortune and
+subjugated fate."
+
+Neither rank nor genius nor any other natural endowment forms the only
+true basis of success. A right disposition, a desire and determination,
+founded on the sub-structure of right purpose, to cope with the problems
+that confront you, constitute the real basis of achievement. In short, the
+only demands which success makes of you is that you act with the most of
+yourself, bringing all your faculties to bear upon what you have to do;
+instilling your best effort into the infinite detail that goes to make up
+the great finality of your life. To this end, the systematic development
+of the whole man, body, mind, and soul, in such a manner as to bring you
+into right relation with things as they are and ought to be, is the
+paramount question.
+
+In fact, education is the only passport to success. I do not mean that
+education that is restricted to institutions of learning. These, while
+possessing a decided advantage, by no means have a monopoly of learning.
+Genius finds opportunity in the great laboratories of nature. Every man
+has within himself an educational organization presided over by a full
+faculty; and nature's wonderful book is ever open to him, if only he will
+lay hold upon the lessons it would teach him. This type of education which
+is the drawing out toward all things the latent forces from within, and
+the broadening out for greater usefulness, means the acquisition of
+ability to meet every emergency and the establishment of high ideals.
+
+Moreover, in the race for success, the proper nourishment of the brain is
+an essential part of self-development. The brain is substantially the
+great artist that creates our ideals in life. And yet we forget sometimes
+that it is the master of our destiny; and allow it to sink into that dull
+apathy so fatal to our hopes and aims. It would almost seem, indeed, as if
+a kind of fatality clung to some men in the way in which they neglect this
+supreme faculty of their being. You possess the power to use your brain as
+you choose; but not the right, morally, for society demands of you a high
+standard of thinking, since it is the only rational basis for a free
+government. Thus it is as much your duty properly to nourish your brain as
+to give proper care to the body.
+
+In the rigid economy of modern life we should use extreme care in the
+selection of our reading. Our best interests demand more of us than a
+gormandizing of newspapers or ephemeral reading of any kind. Far be it
+from me to disparage that great organ of the times--the newspaper, which
+is a source of keen delight and benefit to us all, and almost the only
+source of instruction to thousands of the race. But we should be judicious
+in this, and not allow transitional matter to monopolize our time. "Read
+not the times, read the eternities," cried Thoreau. The shelves of our
+home and public libraries are filled with priceless volumes yet unread by
+us. And he who is not cultivating a taste for good wholesome reading is
+missing one of the highest enjoyments of life as well as minimizing his
+chances for success. We should ever be exploring new regions of thought.
+And in the extreme activity of this electric age we shall be obliged to
+take snap shots at our reading--on the street car, in the lunch room,
+anywhere we find it possible to peruse a single page.
+
+If we look into the lives of some of the illustrious ones we shall find
+that they obtained knowledge under the greatest disadvantages. We see
+Lincoln reading his favorite volumes by the dim light of a pineknot blaze;
+or Burritt poring over his books at the forge; or Garfield gazing intently
+at the pages while riding a mule on the banks of a canal. Wesley likewise
+diligently searched the Scriptures while riding horseback over the
+country; William Cobbett learned grammar while a common soldier on the
+march; and we are told that Alexander the Great, each night on retiring,
+would place his favorite book, the "Iliad," under his pillow and during
+his waking moments would peruse its pages.
+
+But the high intellectual plane of present-day civilization demands more
+of us than the world demanded then, when the avenues to honor and to power
+lay over fields of conquest, and the passport to favor was the sword. The
+complex problems of today call for a more thorough cultivation of our
+mental powers, which, to bring into play upon the multifarious concerns of
+our life, is the object of broad education. A well cultivated mind makes a
+man monarch of all that he surveys; and no one can be said to be truly
+successful who has not invaded the empire of thought in search for the
+imperishable Fleece of Gold.
+
+Success, then, in the highest sense, is a full realization of the highest
+wealth of body, mind, and soul. And while it does not disparage material
+aggrandizement, it makes it subservient, ever looking to an equalization
+of the greater revenues of life. Like truth it consists in a right
+proportion of things; and like character, is inherent in the nature of the
+individual. Success must embrace all the cardinal virtues. It must arise
+from the harmonious and fullest use of all the faculties. In its essence,
+it is the aggregate of those things which we have acquired, and which we
+are putting to a wise and useful purpose. The way of life is strewn with
+those who have done fairly well. Excellence is the golden quality to seek.
+Success, like a commodity, has its price, and he who would have it must be
+willing to pay. You can not buy it on a bargain counter; it is a staple
+product and demands full value--the sublimest qualities of your being.
+
+  "In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves for a bright manhood,
+  there is no such words as--fail."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The Messenger of Fate
+
+"They Seized the Favorable Moment."
+
+
+
+    Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer
+  you.... It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried
+  forever, and to-morrow we may never see.
+
+  --Victor Hugo.
+
+
+  Master of human destinies am I;
+  Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
+  Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
+  Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
+  Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
+  I knock unbidden once at every gate;
+  If sleeping wake; if feasting, rise before
+  I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
+  And they who follow me reach every state
+  Mortals desire and conquer every foe
+  Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
+  Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
+  Seek me in vain and uselessly implore;
+  I answer not and I return no more.
+
+  --John J. Ingalls.
+
+
+
+
+Opportunity
+
+The famous statue, "Take Time by the Forelock," was a masterpiece of
+Greek sculpture. A noted Athenian orator, Callistratus, has given us a
+picture of the work of art: "Opportunity was a boy in the flower of his
+youth, handsome in mien, his hair fluttering at the caprice of the wind,
+leaving his locks disheveled. Like Dionysius, his forehead shone with
+grace, and his cheeks glowed with splendor. With winged feet to indicate
+swiftness, he stood upon a sphere, resting upon the tips of his toes as
+if ready for flight. His hair fell in thick curls from his brow, easy to
+take hold upon. But upon the back of his head there were only the
+beginnings of hairy growths, and, when he had once passed, it was not
+possible to seize him."
+
+An ancient legend gives us a more vivid idea of the significance of
+the statue:
+
+"Who art thou?"
+
+"Time, the all-subduer."
+
+"Why standest thou on tiptoe?"
+
+"I speed ever."
+
+"Why hast thou double wings on each foot?"
+
+"I fly with the wind."
+
+"But why is thy hair over thine eye?"
+
+"To be grasped by him who meets me."
+
+"The back of thy head, why is it bald?"
+
+"When once I have rushed by, with winged feet, one can never grasp me
+from behind."
+
+In its literal significance, however, opportunity means something either
+"in front of the door" or "outside of the harbor." For when the word first
+crept into common speech it created two pictures,--that of a ship with
+sails unfurled, riding at anchor, ready to start upon her unknown voyage,
+with just a moment to spare to catch her before the sails are bent; or the
+picture of a veiled figure standing for an instant at the door of one's
+life, knocking with sharp, swift strokes and then, if no answer comes,
+passing away into the darkness, refusing to be recalled.
+
+In all the vocabulary of human speech no other word rings with truer
+eloquence, or speaks with greater triumph, than that one
+word,--opportunity. Born in the primeval forest of man's first
+dwelling-place, it has marked the central path of civilization and hewn
+its way to the front with unerring stroke. The finger of destiny ever
+points back to this factor in human life as the primal element in all
+achievement, the forerunner of all success. Without it human genius
+would die, man's talent and skill waste away, and the hope of the race
+would vanish.
+
+Opportunity is the good angel that reveals the true issues of life,
+unfolding the bud of possibility into the full-blown flower of progress.
+It is the remorseless foe of sleepy monotony, awakening the passions in
+the soul, rousing our powers to action. At the door of your life and mine
+comes this silent, veiled figure, its hands laden with wealth, knocking
+for admission. But, alas! it has been too often with us as George Eliot
+with such tragic pathos has put it: "The golden moments in the stream of
+life rush past us and we see nothing but sand. The angels come to visit us
+and we know them only when they are gone."
+
+There has been no period of time since God whirled out of chaos this
+universe of wonders whose every moment did not hold for some one,
+somewhere, some kind of opportunity. Man is the only creature under heaven
+that has been privileged to walk with his face skyward to gaze upon the
+stars, to behold the opportunities of life as they surge along his
+pathway. In her wisdom, nature has given our eyes the power of both the
+telescope and the microscope, that we may see our opportunities afar and
+rightly discern them when they come within our reach.
+
+Do not regard your opportunities as mere visages floating in the horizon
+of your life, or autumn leaves driven by the winds of chance across your
+path. Every opportunity far from being a thing of chance, is a product of
+definite causes. Opportunity is unrealized possibility supplemented by
+conditions favorable for the execution of a purpose. And the power lies
+within you to create circumstances. That skillful artist, the human brain,
+draws a mental picture--an idea, the judgment approves, the will renders
+a decision to create that idea into actual being; in other words, gives it
+a soul, and then we have opportunity made real by the process of a
+creative force.
+
+We are apt to regard this quality in our existence as a somewhat
+superhuman term, an abstraction beyond the realm of common life, or at
+most an asset within the reach of a favored few; whereas it is a common
+attribute playing a potential part in our every-day activities. In its
+very nature opportunity is democratic and goes, like a wayfarer, knocking
+at the gates of every man's life.
+
+This messenger of fate, however, will not knock at the door of that man
+who is unable to meet the demands it would make upon him. It ever
+recognizes the eternal fitness of things, since it looks to its own
+promotion as well as the promotion of him who seeks to embrace it.
+Opportunity, then, is not opportunity at all if a man is not equal to it.
+When the steam engine lay in its elementary state in the great laboratory
+of nature, it was an opportunity for James Watt; and by his accepting it,
+opportunity realized its own fulfillment, became its own blessing and a
+blessing to all mankind. The unskilled laborer who dug out the ore could
+not claim this opportunity because he was not equal to its requirements.
+
+Moreover, every man is himself an opportunity of infinite greatness. And
+he who depends upon the world alone to furnish him opportunities is
+destined to meet with failure. Self-reliance is the passport to
+success. The man who is continually bemoaning a lack of opportunity
+acknowledges his own lack of resources--is wanting in creative force.
+Every golden moment is an opportunity for him to step out from the
+shadows into the sunshine. Optimism sees opportunity in the ordinary
+jog-trot of daily duty.
+
+One of the most valuable assets which we can possess is the ability to
+mold from the adverse circumstances about us our opportunities. And "a
+wise man," says Bacon, "will make more opportunities than he finds." When
+Michael Angelo takes the castaway rock which he finds in his path and
+carves from it "The Young David;" when Herschel at the midnight hour,
+after playing his violin for a living, goes out and studies the star-lit
+skies, the field of his immortal conquest; when Elihu Burritt, working at
+the forge, grapples with mathematics, and masters several languages; when
+obstacles are overcome, and adversity yields to the invincible wills of
+men, then has opportunity by this self-made principle been hewn out of
+the very stumbling blocks which were in the way.
+
+Every man is a treasury of untold wealth. He is not great merely for what
+he is, but for the greatness of his possibility--that undreamed grandeur
+which opportunity is ever seeking to reveal. True greatness does not
+emanate from the power of genius so much as it does from the wise
+discrimination which we exercise in the choice of our opportunities, and
+the intelligence with which we lay hold upon them. It is a fine art in
+life to know just the thing to do, and the opportune moment for doing it.
+Eternal vigilance is the price we must pay, and the constant whetting of
+our faculties.
+
+Our life is a succession of opportunities. Yet however numerous they may
+be, or however bright, they are not availing until placed into the
+crucible of experience. Gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds--all
+the precious jewels imbedded in the treasure-house of nature, become
+valuable to us only when we dig them out, polish and shape them for our
+use. Likewise our opportunities enrich us only as we reach out after them
+and make them an abiding element in our life.
+
+But to know one's opportunity when he sees it, is the secret of life's
+great problem. "Know thy opportunity," is the motto of Pittacus of
+Mitylene, one of the seven wise men. It is inscribed in the temple of
+Apollo at Delphi. And each day, in the temple of our memory, we should
+write it anew. For the practical question is not whether we are making the
+most of our opportunities, but whether we are conscious of them at all.
+
+Moreover, to know them _instantly_ as well as to know them instinctively
+is essential to our well-being. When Victor Hugo charges us to take all
+reasonable advantage of that which the present offers, he reveals the true
+character of opportunity. It lives only in the present tense, it knows no
+to-morrows, and makes a record of the yesterdays only when it has found
+lodgment in our lives.
+
+Suppose DeWitt Clinton, denounced and ridiculed, had been led into the
+belief that his idea was a mere phantom, a mystic nightmare, the Erie
+Canal would not be a reality. Suppose Robert Fulton had accepted the
+issuing vapor of the tea-kettle as a mere phenomenon without seeking in it
+the opportunity for a mighty purpose; suppose that Cyrus W. Field or
+Marconi, or Edison or Ericsson, or the hundreds of others who by their
+inventive genius have been a blessing to mankind, had been contented with
+simply dreaming of the stupendous undertakings which they achieved!
+
+It is the man who knows his opportunities when he sees them, who grips
+them as they pass, who stands at the door of his activities ready to
+welcome and turn to good account each new opportunity that comes, that is
+the typically successful man. Many young men have had noble ideas, backed
+by strong convictions, but failing to "strike while the iron was hot,"
+have let their convictions die, the mental picture of their ideals vanish,
+and to their sorrow have seen them wrought by another into reality.
+
+And below this class of men we will find a lower type--the man who is
+always waiting for something to turn up, and always missing it when it
+does. This is the man whom Dickens has immortalized in fiction in the
+familiar figure of Micawber. This class, however, is unmistakably
+diminishing in our day, but still there are many who seem to come just
+short of the prizes of life. They are always just too late for the
+opportunity that should have brought them fame and fortune.
+
+Shakespeare has aptly portrayed that supreme moment in life which we call
+opportunity:
+
+  "There is a tide in the affairs of men,
+  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
+  Omitted, all the voyage of their life
+  Is bound in shallows and in miseries."
+
+And the annals of human experience are filled and overflowing with
+achievements--examples of opportunities that were laid hold upon at just
+the critical moment of the tide.
+
+When the armies of Saul and Goliath were encamped in the valley of Elah,
+an opportunity was given to every soldier in Israel to meet the Philistine
+giant, but the youthful shepherd, David, alone accepted it, and his name
+has been praised for thirty centuries.
+
+An unlettered girl, a peasant in France, saw an opportunity to save the
+glory of her country, and with a courage that baffles human understanding
+Joan of Arc went forth to conquer.
+
+When George III of England ascended the throne and began to oppress the
+Colonists, an opportunity was created for the American people to act. With
+sublime patriotism they arose to the occasion in defense of their rights,
+and historians allude to the inspiring event as the opening scene in the
+Revolution.
+
+And when, by a stroke of diplomacy, Thomas Jefferson purchased from
+Napoleon Bonaparte the Louisiana Territory, one million square miles,
+or over six hundred millions of acres, for two cents and a half an
+acre, an opportunity was seized whose benefit to the American Nation no
+one can estimate.
+
+But if you would know a grand hero in whose life opportunity shone like
+Mars, read the life of Ulysses S. Grant--the man out of whose very
+failures evolved a most brilliant success. When, standing with leaden
+heart in the little store at Galena, the opportunity for a military life
+came knocking at the door, he welcomed it. For when morning broke on the
+12th of April, 1861, and the first guns of the Civil War roared upon
+Sumter, Grant marched to the front, and soon became a brigadier-general
+"The spur of disappointed hopes, the fire of his ambition, and the iron
+will that lay back of many of his failures--all the qualities latent in
+the man of coming greatness, sprang into mighty being."
+
+A gigantic opportunity next confronted him, for yonder on the banks of
+the Cumberland frowned the massive walls of Fort Donelson. Behind them
+Buckner's gray legions stood ready for action. It was the hour of fate.
+Grant pressed on, the Confederates surrendered the stronghold, and the
+first Union victory was won. Shiloh and Vicksburg, Cold Harbor and
+Petersburg, Richmond and Appomattox, and many other glorious victories
+tell the story of opportunities masterfully grasped.
+
+Our country is the land of "the golden fleece," and wherever you may be in
+its vast domain, you are the one who must answer for yourself the
+stupendous question--"To what height shall I attain?" You are like the man
+in the "Arabian Nights" dropped into a valley filled with diamonds. It is
+within your power to select that which is most valuable for your
+enrichment. There are splendid opportunities on every hand, and whether
+you shall grasp them or let them go, remains alone for you to determine.
+
+The door of opportunity for the highest development of every individual,
+in every phase of life, is ever open. Every golden moment holds something
+of value for the earnest seeker, just as every flower holds in its bosom a
+treasure for the thrifty bee. No one of us may ever have such splendid
+opportunities as did the illustrious ones to whom we owe our present
+inheritance. But at the threshold of our lives will ever come the veiled
+figure with its gifts, and, however modest may be the treasures which it
+brings, if we accept them and turn to good account all that they hold of
+value to us, our reward will be truly great.
+
+  "Pull many a gem of purest ray serene,
+    The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
+  Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
+    And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+The Active Hand
+
+"They Plied Their Oars With Vigor"
+
+
+  "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."
+
+  "Count that day lost whose low descending sun
+  Views from thy hand no worthy action done."
+
+
+
+The Individual Problem
+
+
+With steady, even, and vigorous stroke the young heroes from Hellas ply
+their oars, and the blue waters of the Euxine are flecked with foam. Here
+is an ideal picture. A band of enterprising young men, alert, active,
+ambitions--a scene typical of the highest conception of life. It has ever
+been scenes like this that have challenged the admiration of the world.
+And the plaudits of men and of angels attend the young man today who has a
+worthy object in view, who believes in himself, and bends to the oars with
+might and main.
+
+An "active hand" symbolizes usefulness and thrift. Has it ever occurred
+to you what a wonderful piece of mechanism is that hand with which Nature
+has equipped you for seizing the oars of life's activities? Galen, the
+famous anatomist, after a prolonged study of the human hand, conceiving
+it to be the proximate instrument of the soul, was forced to renounce
+atheism, to acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being. Scientists
+regard the human hand as being the most remarkable organ, not vital, in
+the whole animal kingdom.
+
+It is conceded to be, also, the most pronounced physical characteristic
+differentiating man from the lower animals. The chimpanzee and the
+gorilla, closely allied to the human species in many respects, are
+noticeably deficient in the use of their modified hands; being able to
+grasp things only in a cumbersome way. The squirrel handles a nut with
+agility, the beaver builds his dam, and likewise do many other animals
+accomplish much with certain deftness. But the grace, suppleness, and
+precision, so characteristic of the human hand, are lacking. Only in man
+does the organ attain perfection. He alone enjoys the distinction of being
+able to manipulate thumb and forefinger in combination, enabling him to
+attain a high degree of skill.
+
+The hand is the organ of the fifth and last sense, and the only one of the
+five which is active. When the other organs of sense fail it comes to
+their rescue--the blind man reads with his hand and the dumb man speaks
+with it. Being an active organ it gives expression to man's capabilities:
+Put a sword into it and it will fight, a plow and it will till, a harp and
+it will play, a brush and it will paint.
+
+The invention of every machine conceives its first principles in the
+structure of the human hand; and every working part of that machine bears
+a relation in its function to a corresponding part in the mechanism of the
+hand. In fact, physics teaches us that the hand is a combination of the
+six mechanical powers--the lever, the wedge, the wheel and axle, the
+pulley, the screw, and the inclined plane. But the mechanical effect is
+always depreciated. In manufacture hand-made goods excel those made by
+machine. In art the exquisite hand-painting surpasses the lithograph. No
+mechanical device, however efficacious, can produce symphonies or pictures
+or works of any kind with the high degree of excellence of which the hand
+is capable.
+
+But aside from its mechanical functions, this wonderful organ is a
+revelation of the secrets of human nature. Graphology enables us to read
+the character of a person in the hand-writing which he produces. Ages and
+ages ago the Hindus read the hand itself as the physical expression of the
+inner man; they read character by the science of palmistry as we read it
+by that of physiognomy; and some profess to translate the delicate tracery
+today into language that speaks clearly of both past and future. The hand
+is the expression of dishonesty when it steals, of charity when it gives,
+of anger when it smites, of love when it caresses. And one has called it
+the key to that cabinet of character in which Nature conceals, not only
+the motive power of every-day life, but those latent talents and energies
+that, by the knowledge of self, we can bring to bear upon our lives.
+
+So that this member of our physical organization holds an office of
+supreme dignity and importance in the issues of our lives. It is this
+marvel of mechanism, overruled and directed by the higher power of
+intellect, which elevates man to his high position. And, whether it be the
+hand of the galley slave, or the hand that sways the scepter over an
+empire, the supreme purpose is revealed-they are alike designed to be the
+instruments of usefulness and power.
+
+Even the brain cannot ignore the relative importance of the hand. It
+cannot say to the hand: "I have no need of thee." The captain cannot man
+his ship without the aid of subordinates. Neither can the brain pilot us
+through the activities of life without the aid of hands. A brilliant mind
+is a priceless possession; but all the mental acumen of the universe is
+not availing unless supplemented by those inferior officers--the hands.
+The clothes which you wear once were on the back of a sheep grazing on
+some distant hillside. The chair in which you sit once swayed in the
+forest midst the soughing winds. The pen with which I am writing once was
+imbedded deep in some far-away mountain range. But that occult genius--the
+human brain, conceived the idea of creating that wool, and wood, and ore
+into a higher state of usefulness, and at this juncture was compelled to
+acknowledge the infinite necessity of a co-worker; hence, the brain
+employs the hand as an external agent to put into force the impressions
+which it--the brain--receives from the phenomena of nature.
+
+Moreover, the law of your growth is contingent upon the exercise of these
+faculties. The brain is the judicial function and the hand the executive.
+Together these two powers qualify you for the master-workman. If you allow
+them to exist in the passive sense, you become an apathetic segment in
+the midst of a great world pulsing with life around you. You merely add
+one to the population, instead of counting for a potential and energizing
+influence. If you lift the weight of a clock the smallest fraction of an
+inch, the mechanism will cease to operate. And the relaxation of your will
+from the great obligation of life will cause your powers to atrophy and
+improperly to perform their work. With Browning, "Man was made to grow,
+not stop."
+
+Activity and not atrophy is the law of life. Action is the expression of
+that vital force called energy, and energy moves the world. The keynote of
+the natural world is action: the earth revolves, the river moves in its
+course, the tempest rages, the mountain acts from volcanic phenomena,
+vegetation grows, etc. In every tiny seed lies concealed this mysterious
+force--only a spark of life which, encouraged by nature, springs into a
+waving harvest.
+
+This very quality is synonymous with the reality of life. The human mind
+ostensibly has an aversion to lifelessness. We turn instinctively from
+the dead and withered branch to the blossoming flower; from the stagnant
+pool to the dashing cataract, and every healthy mind finds delight in
+such terms as vim, vigor, energy, and activity, which are the chief
+natural characteristics of the human hand. Demosthenes on being asked
+what is the first element in oratory, replied, "Action:" when asked to
+state the second element, he replied "Action," and when questioned as to
+the third, he made the same reply. Action, first, last, and all the time,
+is the great principle of life and progress. Without it the most perfect
+engine, gigantic in proportions and costly in equipment, is a dead
+thing, valueless as the formless mass of ore it once was. But that
+marvelous product of man's hand and brain, plus steam, becomes a
+veritable giant of power.
+
+Now this same law applies in relation to our bodies in general. Action is
+an essential as seen in the beating heart, the throbbing pulse, the
+coursing blood, and various other functions. In fact, the body is the
+engine that runs the machinery of our lives. Generating energy and storing
+it up, it gives impetus to all that we achieve. With all its mysteries,
+beauty, and strength, this human organism is worthless, a burden to
+society unless vitalized with that majestic force that makes man
+industrious.
+
+In the words of a great man, "Nature fits all her children with something
+to do." The first man on earth was a gardener. Milton hears Adam
+conversing with Eve thus:
+
+  "Man hath his daily work of body or mind
+  Appointed, which declares his dignity,
+  And the regard of Heaven on all his ways;
+  While other animals inactive range,
+  And of their doings God takes no account.
+  To-morrow ere fresh morning streaks the east
+  With first approach of light, we must be ris'n
+  And at our pleasant labor, to reform
+  Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green."
+
+Work is the great law of life. "No man," says Lowell, "is born into the
+world whose work is not born with him. There is always work and tools to
+work withal, for those who will; and blessed are the horny hands of toil."
+True work, the judicious employment of our powers for the accomplishment
+of the noblest object in life, is the only thing that will satisfy the
+waiting capacity of men and women. Neither gold nor scholarship nor any
+other acquisition can meet the requirement like the application of one's
+self to some kind of work. Work is a tonic which exuberates mentally,
+morally, and physically the man who wisely adjusts himself to it. And he
+who is able to work and refuses is out of harmony with nature.
+
+The cardinal question of life is that of achievement. In every human
+being there is the desire to rise to something great. The most
+thoughtless boy on the street looks serious as the Presidential carriage
+rolls past. In the deep recesses of his nature there is kindled by the
+spectacle a momentary yearning for fame--he would like to be President
+some day. Likewise does every man, when he seriously views the pageantry
+of life's ideals and purposes, have aspiration, for such is the natural
+state of man.
+
+The allurements of a passive life are known to them only who have no
+knowledge of the charms of an active life. Leisure is found only in the
+dictionary of the slothful. Dionysius is asked if he is at leisure, and
+rebukes the question, saying, "God forbid that it should ever befall me."
+The indulgence in the activities of life comprises not only ultimate
+accomplishment, but is productive of present enjoyment as well. And not
+infrequently does the pursuit of an object give more pleasure than the
+possession of it. Expectation often outshines experience. Therefore, all
+should cultivate a taste for work, which, through the alchemy of
+influence, transmutes duty into privilege.
+
+Moreover, it is fundamental in the law of success that one's pursuit must
+be congenial if he is to excel. On the contrary, however, lassitude can
+not be condoned if we find ourselves engaged in uncongenial employment. No
+kind of work, to the man who possesses dominion over his feelings and his
+faculties, is painful but proceeds with pleasure when once the habit of
+industry is acquired.
+
+Our efforts should not be casual, but causal. He who does most and does it
+well, becomes most. Horatius received as much land as he could plow around
+in a day. And you and I get each day just as much as, by putting our hand
+to the plow of activity, we are able to encompass by faithful plodding.
+Hard work is the price of all that is valuable. All the great strides in
+the world's achievements were made possible only by forced activity and
+prolonged effort. Spontaneity is a foreign element in the process of
+healthy and rugged development. The spider spins its web and the morning
+bespangles it with dew, creating a thing of beauty, but valueless. It
+would require the entire existence of several hundred silkworms to produce
+an equal amount of silk fabric. The mushroom grows up in a night, and dies
+in the glare of the morning sun; while the oak, struggling through the
+years, battling with the elements, lives a perpetual blessing to man.
+
+It is the intense struggle with the problems of life that produces in
+men the sturdy qualities. The short cuts to fame are few and not
+abiding. Success is not reached by a thornless path, but is attained by
+the path of plain, hard work. All things come to him who waits. Such is
+the very essence of an idle doctrine! All things come to him who works.
+Walter Scott working tirelessly in the attic while his companions below
+carouse the night away; Thoreau banishing himself into the lonely
+forest that he might prepare for larger usefulness; Dryden, "thinking
+on for a fortnight in a perfect frenzy;" Heyne, the German scholar,
+allowing himself "no more than two nights of weekly rest" for six
+months, that he might finish a course in Greek; Reynolds, the greatest
+portrait painter of England, applying his brush for thirty-six hours
+without stopping; Balzac, determined to be a king in literature,
+fighting his way with eternal diligence; William Pitt spurning
+difficulty and "trampling upon impossibility;" Elihu Burritt grappling
+with mathematics at the forge; or Isaac Newton turning his back upon a
+life of ease and setting off to college, where "the midnight wind swept
+over his papers the ashes of his long extinguished fire." These
+examples and thousands of others remind us that
+
+  "Heights by great men reached and kept
+    Were not attained by sudden flight;
+  But they while their companions slept,
+    Were toiling upward in the night."
+
+They had brains and hands too active, ambitions too aggressive,
+aspirations too lofty for a quiet existence, and they pressed their way
+onward and upward till they stood near the summit of a lofty ideal.
+
+When Xerxes, that great Persian monarch, seated upon a throne of ivory and
+gold, viewed for the last time the magnificent array of his armies and his
+fleets, we read that he buried his face in his hands and wept, because he
+had reached the zenith of his glory; his ambition had been spent, his work
+had come to an end. And more desolate should be the man to-day who does
+not feel the passion of an earnest life, who does not yearn for some noble
+activity. He who sits with folded arms in the craft of civilization to be
+borne idly along while others ply the oars, must soon part company with
+the brave, loyal sons of activity to launch his idle bark in the dead
+waters of life, where the currents never come and the winds of energy are
+never felt.
+
+  "At the flaming forge of life
+    Our fortunes must be wrought;
+  On its sounding anvil shaped,
+    Each burning deed and thought."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Ethics of Activity
+
+
+
+  "The busy world shoves angrily aside
+  The man who stands with arms akimbo set,
+  Till the occasion tells him what to do;
+  And he who waits to have his task marked out.
+  Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled."
+
+  --James Russell Lowell.
+
+
+A Man's Relation to Society
+
+This question of activity is a twofold problem. In the preceding chapter
+we viewed it from the standpoint of the individual--as if he were the sole
+occupant of the boat, rowing toward a purely selfish end; going, as it
+were, in quest of the prize of life for purely personal aggrandizement.
+Whereas, strictly speaking, no man exists in a purely individualistic
+sense. He can not regard himself as separable from a social whole. Every
+individual is a vital element of an organized force working toward a
+mutual end. You are an integral factor, so to speak, of the social
+problem, but your value is determined by your relation to other quantifies
+in the complex system with which you are identified. As a segregated unit,
+you diminish in value.
+
+A combination of diverse and multi-form contributions assimilated from a
+complex human life, your being looks to many sources for its development;
+from the lowest phase of experience to the highest. These influences you
+must acknowledge as emanating from a social system--influences which you
+are totally powerless, alone, to exert upon yourself. For instance, a man
+can not be his own educator in all that the term implies--he can not make
+his own books, print his own newspapers; if he could he would have to look
+outside of himself for the data necessary for his use. In other words, no
+man lives to himself alone. He can no more be separated from the social
+order of things and retain character value, than any one of a hundred
+square inches of canvas in an oil painting, separated from the rest, would
+constitute a picture. A single note in a musical composition, however
+exquisite the piece may be, has comparatively little value taken by
+itself; only when it assumes relationship with other notes and becomes
+governed by the law of harmony, does it fulfill its mission and become a
+valuable factor.
+
+Then, as units of a social whole, we have obligations other than those
+affecting "individual" problems. Society has a rightful claim upon every
+one of its members. "You are not your own, you are bought with a price,"
+is true in a larger sense than a merely Scriptural one. For what one
+becomes is really, as already stated, but the effect of combined
+influences brought to bear upon one's life by the forces of human society.
+Therefore, society expects us to reciprocate, and is just in its claim;
+just as parents are entitled to the high esteem and reciprocation of their
+offspring. It demands of each one of us all that we are capable of
+producing, exacting the highest order of service as well. The paying of
+taxes does not placate the demands which society makes upon you. It
+demands yourself--body, mind, and soul--not in a passive sense, but in
+active relationship to your environment. And every man is morally bound
+to respect the claims thus made upon him.
+
+The highest socialistic conception is not that which contemplates an
+equitable distribution of property and labor. But assuming a more rational
+ground, it believes in equal rights to all; is based upon a right
+proportion of motives rather than upon the equalization of property
+considerations. It is both humanitarian and utilitarian. It seeks its own
+principally, yet is generous in the ulterior aim. This is the ideal
+relation between the individual and the social order. The greatest duty
+confronting each one in the world, and the one which all should earnestly
+embrace, is the duty of making the most of one's self with the ulterior
+view of contributing the largest measure of usefulness to his fellow-men.
+
+On the other hand, to employ an extreme example--and yet it is shown by
+statistics that there are one hundred thousand tramps and vagrants in this
+country--the man who folds his arms and defiantly proclaimes that the
+world owes him a living, mutinies against the sacred order of
+things--"fouls his own nest," as it were. To that man society replies: "If
+any man is not willing to work, neither let him eat." And this is the
+dominant note of the twentieth century as truly as it was in the first
+when spoken by the Roman philosopher. To harbor the doctrine that the
+world owes every man a living, not only discounts the character value of
+the individual, but has a reflex action on the entire social organism.
+Just as one wheel out of play in the mechanism of a watch throws the
+entire works out of order, or one team in a procession halting the whole
+train behind it, the individual failing to do his part affects the
+equilibrium of the whole. Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo and died in
+exile, a prisoner at St. Helena, because one of his marshals, failing to
+comply with orders, arrived too late with re-enforcements. Remember that
+you have an important part to perform, that, as in mathematics, you are a
+quantity so connected with another quantity that if any alteration be made
+in the former there will be a consequent alteration in the latter.
+
+In the busy hive of twentieth-century civilization scant space has been
+provided for drones. The drone is a minus quantity in the problem of life;
+instead of adding to the common weal, he is ever subtracting from it. Like
+an owl he sits in the gloom of indolence hooting at the caravan of events.
+The eye of the world is quick to observe the man who is resting on his
+oars. A more graphic picture of the man who is ever magnifying the world's
+duty to him, and minimizing his duty to the world, could not be painted
+than that one which James Russell Lowell has penned:
+
+  "The busy world shoves angrily aside
+  The man who stands with arms akimbo set."
+
+The world has but one duty to this man, namely, to dispel the cloud from
+his vision and arouse him to worthy action.
+
+To contend that the world owes every man a living would be as
+preposterous as to assert that the government owes every citizen under the
+flag a pension. The world owes no man anything except that for which he
+pays a just equivalent. Every man is indebted to the world; he owes it all
+his best possessions--his talent, time, and effort. And the individual who
+attempts to throw off this yoke of duty is violating one of nature's great
+laws. Even the lower forms of life afford example of this supreme law.
+Solomon startles the sluggard with his sharp admonition to betake himself
+to the ant. And Sir John Lubbock points men to the insect world to learn
+real diligence and thrift.
+
+Individual stagnation means public pollution. The man who arms himself
+with a "rake," ever reaching out after something without giving an
+equivalent, instead of championing the "hoe," determined to exercise his
+faculties in the interests of humanity, becomes hostile to the noblest
+sentiment and the highest aims of society; as in the case of the tramps
+mentioned above who are a national menace, Idleness breeds vice. Industry
+enhances the virtues. When a man ceases to work he retrogrades; he becomes
+a stranger to lofty ideals and wholesome activities. The man with an
+ambition ever finds himself in the ascendency; while he who deplores the
+exercise of his powers, avoiding work as he would a powder magazine or a
+pest, is in the descendency toward a state of groveling and low ideals.
+And the difference between these two men marks the difference between
+success and failure.
+
+We are ever obligated to a great duty, namely, to reach the maximum of our
+possibilities. Our greatest prerogative in the economy of life is the wise
+husbanding of resources, and the skillful marshaling of our forces on the
+field of common duty. The great duty of leading a useful life confronts us
+always. We can by no stratagem, whatsoever, escape its presence. We ever
+hear its voice calling after us, and can no more flee from it than we can
+flee from the voice of conscience. Like Poe's raven, it sets up a never
+ceasing appeal at the door of our lives. Prudence forbids that we turn our
+back on this duty of self-devotion. For as Michael Angelo saw in the block
+of marble the hidden angel, a wise man sees in duty an infinite
+opportunity.
+
+Galileo was so absorbed in his pursuit that he forgot personal comfort and
+even personal safety, and lost his eyesight in quest of the mountains in
+the moon, the rings around Saturn and the "star-heaps" in the sky. And
+when that distinguished man of science, Professor Agassiz, was invited to
+lecture at a great price, his reply was, "I have no time to make money."
+Likewise did the great Spurgeon, when offered almost fabulous prices to
+cross the Atlantic and lecture, refuse because of a zealous devotion to
+the purpose of his life. And every one should learn that the thorough and
+faithful performance of duty is the first essential of a worthy life.
+
+Every human soul was made with some design, invested with the possibility
+of a useful life, a noble destiny. Whether it be the mercenary Greek
+vending his wares on the street corner, or the roaming Italian with his
+harp strapped over his shoulder, or the dissolute man behind prison bars
+paying the penalty of misspent days--all are invested with latent power
+and talent to fill a loftier place in the world. But, unfortunately, while
+most men have the desire, not all have the determination to rise above the
+ordinary and the common state in which they find themselves. This is a
+deplorable condition, seriously detracting from the sum of human
+greatness.
+
+Every man has been called for dominion. Each, in the divine plan, is to be
+a ruler in the universe, not a "mollusk with aimless revery;" he is to be
+a man with vitality, not "dead matter known only as avoirdupois." By this
+measure a man is not worth so much as a sheep which furnishes two
+substantial commodities--food and clothing. Minus the attributes which
+qualify him for a high rank, man is a being with a buried talent, only a
+unit in the great world around him. Plus these attributes, no system of
+mathematics can compute his worth.
+
+  "Let me but do my work from day to day,
+    In field or forest, at the desk or loom,
+    In roaring market place, or tranquil room;
+  Let me but find it in my heart to say,
+  When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
+    'This is my work; my blessing not my doom;
+    Of all who live I am the one by whom
+  This work can best be done in the right way.'"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Fleece of Gold, by Charles Stewart Given
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+<title>A Fleece of Gold, by Charles Stewart Given</title>
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+Title: A Fleece of Gold
+       Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece
+
+Author: Charles Stewart Given
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8881]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 20, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLEECE OF GOLD ***
+
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+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
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+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>A Fleece of Gold</h1>
+
+<h2>Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece</h2>
+
+<p align="center" class="smallcaps">by</p>
+
+<h3>Charles Stewart Given</h3>
+
+<h4>1905</h4>
+
+
+
+<h5>Second Edition Revised</h5>
+
+
+
+<p align="center">To my sons<br />
+Kingsley and Gordon</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>  "Jason and his men seized the favorable moment of the rebound, plied
+  their oars with vigor, and passed through in safety."</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Contents</h1>
+
+
+
+<p><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></p>
+
+<p>  I. <a href="#01">The Ruling Element</a>, "Jason and his men."</p>
+
+<p> II. <a href="#02">The Golden Quality</a>, "They passed through."</p>
+
+<p>III. <a href="#03">The Messenger of Fate</a>, "They seized the favourable moment."</p>
+
+<p> IV. <a href="#04">The Active Hand</a>, "They plied their oars with vigor."</p>
+
+<p>  V. <a href="#05">Ethics of Activity</a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Foreword</h1>
+
+
+
+<p>Among the smaller forces which operate upon the mind and tend toward
+strengthening and exalting the best ideals, are little books like this.
+They are especially valuable when so much of the author's own experience
+forms a thread upon which are suspended jewels of thought and illustration
+serviceable to those who would see and know the best things.</p>
+
+<p>I have found these characteristics in this small volume, and gladly
+recommend it to all those who would become more familiar with what our
+author calls "the key to that cabinet of character in which nature
+conceals not only the motive power of every-day life, but those latent
+talents and energies that, through a knowledge of self, we can bring to
+bear upon our lives." This book will help many who have small
+opportunities in the form of time and money to expend in the use of
+larger volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Stewart Given</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name="intro"></a>Introduction</h1>
+
+
+
+<p>The fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece is known to old and young the
+world around. To the latter, perhaps, no other simple narrative in
+Greek mythology is more fascinating, nor holds a more valuable lesson
+if they will but seek to learn it. But especially to the boy or young
+man of thoughtful mind does the glorious adventure appeal and make its
+lessons obvious. By way of refreshing the memory of those who were once
+familiar with the myth, but who, in the practical school of experience,
+have lost the chord of their adventure-loving days; and also for those,
+perchance, who are not acquainted with the tale, a brief sketch will
+here serve our purpose.</p>
+
+<p>In Thessaly dwell a king and a queen with their two children, a boy and a
+girl. The holy alliance between the two royal members of the household
+becomes disrupted, and Nephele, the good mother, appeals to Mercury, the
+messenger of the gods, to assist her in secretly placing the children out
+of reach of their father, the king. Mercury provides a ram with a golden
+fleece, on which the boy and girl are placed. The shining creature springs
+into the air, bearing its precious burden across the sea. Unfortunately,
+the girl falls from the ram's back and is drowned, but the boy is landed
+safely on the other shore in the kingdom of Colchis. Here he sacrifices
+the ram to Jupiter and presents the golden fleece to the king, who places
+it in a consecrated grove under the care of a sleepless dragon.</p>
+
+<p>Now Jason is heir to the throne of &AElig;son, ruler of another kingdom in
+Thessaly, from whence the royal children started on their adventurous
+journey. Years have passed, however, since this remarkable incident, and
+Jason, being now a young man and having been told the dramatic tale of
+the Golden Fleece, begins to think what a glorious adventure it would be
+to go in quest of the royal prize. Forthwith he makes preparations for
+the expedition, and with a band of other lusty young heroes starts on a
+sea voyage toward the land of the Colchian king. It is not without
+difficulty, however, that they accomplish the voyage, for at the entrance
+of the Euxine Sea they encounter two floating islands, veritable
+mountains of rock, huge and shaggy, which, in their tossings and
+heavings, at intervals come together "crushing and grinding to atoms any
+object that might be caught between them." But "<i>Jason and his men seized
+the favorable moment of the rebound, plied their oars with vigor and
+passed through in safety</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Approaching the royal palace Jason makes known his mission, whereupon
+the king promises to relinquish the valuable possession if Jason will
+yoke to the plow two fire-breathing bulls and sow the teeth of the
+dragon. Apprehending that by this means the king seeks to destroy him,
+Jason pleads his cause to Medea, the king's daughter, who furnishes him
+a charm by which he can safely encounter the fiery breath of the beasts
+and the armed men that will spring up in the furrow where the dragon's
+teeth are sown.</p>
+
+<p>In his "Age of Fable," Bullfinch gives us a graphic picture of the scene:
+"At the time appointed the people assembled at the grove of Mars, and the
+king assumed his royal seat, while the multitude covered the hill-sides.
+The brazen-footed bulls rushed in, breathing fire from their nostrils that
+burned up the herbage as they passed. The sound was like the roar of a
+furnace, and the smoke like that of water upon quick-lime. Jason advanced
+boldly to meet them. His friends, the chosen heroes of Greece, trembled to
+behold him. Regardless of the burning breath, he soothed their rage with
+his voice, patted their necks with fearless hand, and adroitly slipped
+over them the yoke, and compelled them to drag the plow. The Colchians
+were amazed; the Greeks shouted for joy. Jason next proceeded to sow the
+dragon's teeth and plow them in. And soon the crop of armed men sprang up,
+and, wonderful to relate! no sooner had they reached the surface than they
+began to brandish their weapons and rush upon Jason. The Greeks trembled
+for their hero, and even she who had provided him a way of safety and
+taught him how to use it, Medea herself, grew pale with fear. Jason for a
+time kept his assailants at bay with his sword and shield, till finding
+their numbers overwhelming, he resorted to the charm which Medea had
+taught him, seized a stone and threw it in the midst of his foes. They
+immediately turned their arms against one another, and soon there was not
+one of the dragon's brood left alive."</p>
+
+<p>Having complied with all the conditions set forth by the king, the victor
+now turns with eager step toward the grove of Mars, and seizing the golden
+prize makes his way back to Thessaly, rejoicing in his glorious success.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name="01"></a>I</h1>
+
+<h2>The Ruling Element</h2>
+
+<h3>"Jason and His Men."</h3>
+
+
+
+<blockquote>    What constitutes a state?<br />
+Not high-raised battlements or labored mound,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Thick wall or moated gate;<br />
+Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Not bays and broad armed ports,<br />
+Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Not starred and spangled courts,<br />
+Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;No! men--high-minded men--<br />
+With powers as far above dull brutes endued,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;In forest, brake, or den,<br />
+As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  --Sir William Jones.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>The Young Man</h3>
+
+
+<p>Jason has just stepped over the threshold into the glory of a rich young
+manhood. And he is careful to select for his expedition some of the
+choicest heroes of Greece--young, brave, and strong. It has ever been
+thus. Youth has always been synonymous with adventure. It is a condition
+which seems inherent; nature instilling into the blood of her sons the
+very spirit of discontent--of longing to push out from the commonplace
+scenes of childhood into broader domains of experience.</p>
+
+<p>The very books which most fascinate the boy are those which deal in
+thrilling tales of adventure. The wily and unscrupulous traffickers in
+cheap literature have ever been awake to this fact, and their
+highly-colored productions have been flung from the vicious presses like
+lava from Pel&eacute;e to pollute the minds of the young. Why is it that
+"Robinson Crusoe" and stories of this character hold such a charm for
+young people, lingering in their minds long after books of a profounder
+type have been forgotten? It is the love of adventure. To what boy at
+school does not the doleful history lesson assume a more brilliant aspect
+when the adventures of Columbus are taken up? His interest is awakened,
+his imagination inspired, and he is delighted, all because again that
+chord in his nature has been struck--the love of adventure.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps no other single painting in the art galleries at the World's Fair
+of 1893 attracted the attention of a greater number of people, nor
+awakened in so many human breasts a feeling of such intense pathos as
+Thomas Hovenden's painting on "Breaking Home Ties." Here we have it once
+more, adventure--Jason setting off on his journey in search for the golden
+fleece of fame and fortune. The narrow path that so long has led him out
+into the silent acres--the fields that so many years have responded to
+his toil--he has forsaken. The dull routine has ceased to inspire, the
+home circle has become too narrow for his expanding soul. He has caught a
+glimpse of the glories of a new kingdom, and now he is going out to
+realize them.</p>
+
+<p>The young man has always been the <i>ruling element</i> in every new departure.
+He has been the rock upon which the ages have been founded. In the words
+of another: "When the roll-call which men have written is read, it will be
+found that the young men have ruled the world. The oldest literatures have
+this record. The patriarchs unfolded the careers of boys into the conquest
+of old age. Kingdom and empire rode upon the shoulders of young men, and
+their voices of enthusiasm and hope have sounded through many a
+black-breasted midnight and trumpeted the dawn through skies of thickest
+darkness. To causes that drooped they have come and added the raptures of
+hope; to enterprises that were sickening and faint they have brought the
+bounding power of new enthusiasm. To the dead they have brought life.
+Everything from the foundation of the world has been crying for 'young
+blood,' and the armies of the advance have gained the day at the arrival
+of 'recruits,' whose hope and earnestness have never been defeated. Age
+and experience put themselves upon dying pillows made by young hands; into
+young palms and upon young ears falls the meaning of all the past; and
+thus God has written the natural dignity of the young man's life in the
+eternal statute book of the universe." [Footnote: From "Young Men of
+History," by Dr. F.W. Gunsaulus.]</p>
+
+<p>We have but to turn our gaze back over the centuries to find that it has
+always been the young man who has embarked in the world's great
+enterprises. If we turn the pages of religious history we shall find that
+he has been potent there. For when the stream of Hebrew destiny was to be
+turned, a young man, Joseph, who had been sold as a slave into Egypt, was
+selected to accomplish it. And later young Saul of Kish while roaming
+through his father's fields was summoned to a throne. It was the young
+shepherd boy--David--that was chosen "to keep the banner of Israel in the
+sky while the shadows hung black above the hills of Judah." When the
+gospel was to be borne to the Gentiles the divine finger fell upon a young
+tent-maker of Tarsus. Fourteen centuries later a miner's son, Martin
+Luther, won Germany for the Reformation, and John Wesley "while yet a
+student in college" started his mighty world-famous movement. At fifteen
+John de Medici was a cardinal, and Bossuet was known by his eloquence; at
+sixteen Pascal wrote a great work. Ignatius Loyola before he was thirty
+began his pilgrimage, and soon afterward wrote his most famous books. At
+twenty-two Savonarola was rousing the consciences of the Florentines, and
+at twenty-five John Huss was an enthusiastic champion of truth.</p>
+
+<p>But we see the young man standing before the footlights on the stage of
+secular history, too. At twelve Remenyi was making his violin tremulous
+with melody, and C&aelig;sar delivered an oration at Rome; at thirteen Henry M.
+Stanley was a teacher; at fourteen Demosthenes was known as an orator; at
+fifteen Robert Burns was a great poet, Rossini composed an opera, and
+Liszt was a wizard in music. At the age of sixteen Victor Hugo was known
+throughout France; at seventeen Mozart had made a name in Germany, and
+Michael Angelo was a rising star in Italy. At eighteen Marcus Aurelius was
+made a consul; at nineteen Byron was the "amazing genius" of his time; at
+twenty Raphael had finished some of his most famous paintings, Faraday was
+attracting the attention of his country, and two years later was admitted
+to the Royal Institution of Great Britain. At twenty-one Alexander the
+Great conquered the Persians, Beethoven was entrancing the world with his
+music, and William Wilberforce was in Parliament. At twenty-two William
+Pitt had entered Parliament, while William of Orange had received from
+Charles V command of an army. At twenty-three William E. Gladstone had
+denounced the Reform Bill at Oxford, and two years afterward became First
+Junior Lord of the Treasury, and Livingstone was exploring the continent.
+At twenty-four Sir Humphrey Davy was Professor of Chemistry in the Royal
+Institution, Dante, Ruskin, and Browning had become famous writers. At
+twenty-five Hume had written his treatise on Human Nature, Galileo was
+lecturer of science at the University of Pisa, and Mark Antony was the
+"hero of Rome." At twenty-six Sir Isaac Newton had made his greatest
+discoveries; at twenty-seven Don John of Austria had won Lepanto, and
+Napoleon was commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. At twenty-eight
+&AElig;schylus was the peer of Greek tragedy, at twenty-nine Maurice of Saxony
+the greatest statesman of the age, and at thirty Frederick the Great was
+the most conspicuous character of his day. At the same age Richelieu was
+Secretary of State, and Cortez little older when he gazed on the "golden
+Cupolas" of Mexico. These are a few of the splendid names that illumine
+the pages of history across the sea.</p>
+
+<p>But the young man has been no less potent in the affairs of our own
+Nation, which has always been conspicuous for its production of truly
+great men. The story is told that when one of England's great men was
+visiting Henry Clay, and the two were riding over the country, the
+distinguished guest inquired of his host, "What do you raise on these
+hills and in these beautiful valleys?" "Men," was Clay's reply; and the
+English patriot declared that this was the greatest crop to enrich a
+country. We boast that we have given the world a full quota of really
+great young men, some of them like Jason embarking on the sea of adventure
+while the dew of extreme youth is still on their brow. If we wend our way
+back through the grand procession of events of but a single century we
+will find extreme youth marking out the lines of progress and directing
+the course of the nation in politics, in literature and religion.</p>
+
+<p>We would see William Prescott, a boy of twelve, diligently at work in the
+Boston Athenaeum, or Jonathan Edwards at thirteen entering Yale College,
+and while yet of a tender age shining in the horizon of American
+literature; while the same age finds H. W. Longfellow writing for the
+Portland <i>Gazette</i>. At fourteen John Quincy Adams was private secretary to
+Francis H. Dana, American Minister to Russia; at fifteen Benjamin Franklin
+was writing for the <i>New England Courant</i>, and at an early age became a
+noted journalist. Benjamin West at sixteen had painted "The Death of
+Socrates," at seventeen George Bancroft had won a degree in history,
+Washington Irving had gained distinction as a writer. At eighteen
+Alexander Hamilton was famous as an orator, and one year later became a
+lieutenant-colonel under Washington. At nineteen Washington himself was a
+major, Nathan Hale had distinguished himself in the Revolution, Bryant had
+written "Thanatopsis," and Bayard Taylor was engaged in writing his first
+book, "Views Afoot." At twenty Richard Henry Stoddard had found a place in
+the leading periodicals of his day, John Jacob Astor was in business in
+New York, and Jay Gould was president and general manager of a railroad.
+At twenty-one Edward Everett was professor of Greek Literature at Harvard,
+and James Russell Lowell had published a whole volume of his poems; at
+twenty-two Charles Sumner had attracted the attention of some of the
+famous men of his day, William H. Seward had entered upon a brilliant
+political career, while Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau occupied
+a conspicuous place in literature. At twenty-three James Monroe was a
+member of the Executive Council, and one year later was elected to
+Congress; at twenty-four Thomas A. Edison and Richard Jordan Gatling were
+inventors. At twenty-five John C. Calhoun made the famous speech that gave
+him a seat in the Legislature, George William Curtis had traversed Italy,
+Germany, and the Orient and soon after became known by his books of
+travel. At twenty-six Thomas Jefferson occupied a seat in the House of
+Burgesses, John Quincy Adams was minister to The Hague; at twenty-seven
+Patrick Henry was known as the "Orator of Nature," and Robert Y. Hayne was
+speaker in the Legislature of South Carolina. At twenty-eight Edward
+Everett Hale had found a place in the hearts and minds of the people, and
+at twenty-nine John Jay, youngest member of the Continental Congress, was
+chosen to draw up the address to the British Nation.</p>
+
+<p>These illustrious ones, who before their thirtieth year had written their
+names on the immortal banner of their country, are only a few which adorn
+the pages of our early history. Others of like purport might be added
+indefinitely both from the early and the later life of our country. And
+there has been no time when the young man played so important a r&ocirc;le in
+human affairs as he does to-day in the dawn of the twentieth century,
+when the heart and the mind, philanthropy and literature, virtue and
+truth, science and art, capital and labor are the principal factors in the
+world's progress. To refer to but a single instance in this period of our
+national life, there is no greater statesman and patriot than our beloved
+President, Theodore Roosevelt,--a young man to whom we are proud to point
+as a true type of American greatness and American manhood. Assuming
+control of the Nation at such a critical moment in her history, when so
+many dangerous rocks lay in her course, tremendous, indeed, was the
+responsibility thrust upon him. But by his inherent principle of rule, his
+unquenchable patriotism, his indomitable purpose, and the imperiousness of
+his will, founded on a rich scholarship and a broad policy, he has spelled
+triumph out of difficulty, and his name will go down in twentieth-century
+history an example of illustrious young manhood.</p>
+
+<p>The young man is emphatically the <i>ruling element</i> in politics to-day. It
+is estimated that a sufficient number of young men come of age every four
+years to control the issue of the Presidential election. Constituting
+about one-half of the present voting population, they hold far more than
+the balance of political power. It was Goethe who said that the destiny of
+any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of the young men who
+are under twenty-five years of age. And William E. Gladstone affirmed that
+the sum of the characters of this element constitute the character and
+strength of any country.</p>
+
+<p>And when we consider the young man in his relation to all the aspects of
+life--civic, commercial, industrial, and social--we must recognize him as
+the <i>ruling element</i>. Like Jason, the young man of to-day is the hero to
+invade the empire of thought and action in quest of the Fleece of Gold.</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "Lives of great men all remind us,<br />
+We can make our lives sublime;<br />
+And departing leave behind us<br />
+Footprints on the sands of time."</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name="02"></a>II</h1>
+
+<h2>The Golden Quality</h2>
+
+<h3>"They Passed Through."</h3>
+
+
+
+<blockquote>  To live content with small means:<br />
+To seek elegance rather than luxury, and<br />
+Refinement rather than fashion;<br />
+To be worthy, not respectable,<br />
+Wealthy, not rich;<br />
+To study hard, think quietly,<br />
+Talk gently, act frankly;<br />
+To listen to stars and birds, to<br />
+Babes and sages, with open heart;<br />
+To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,<br />
+Await occasions, hurry never,--<br />
+In a word, to let the spiritual,<br />
+Unbidden and unconscious,<br />
+Grow up through the common--<br />
+This is to be my symphony.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  --Channing.</blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Success</h3>
+
+
+<p>In every land and in every age since the curtain first rose on the world's
+great drama men have been in quest of the Fleece of Gold. The onward
+progress of the race since our rude forefathers from the leaves of the
+tree formed their clothes, and in the somber depths of the primeval forest
+constructed their habitation, is due to an insatiable desire to possess
+the coveted prize. Hanging before man's gaze in the consecrated borders of
+his existence, it has inspired him to greater usefulness. He has built
+ships and traversed the seas, invented machines, reared cities, and
+established laws. In science and art and literature he has vied with his
+fellow-man and given a mighty impulse to civilization, all for the Fleece
+of Gold--success.</p>
+
+<p>The world worships at the shrine of success. It regards it as man's
+greatest attribute. And whether we find it in secular affairs,
+substantiated by material grandeur, or in the mysterious realms of the
+inner life characterized by the serene consciousness of truth, it must
+ever be the goal of human aspiration.</p>
+
+<p>It is the thought of some day having their efforts crowned that causes men
+hotly to pursue the phantom or the reality of their lives. This aspiration
+keeps the torch of hope ablaze in the midnight darkness, and the spirits
+buoyed under the noon-day glare, while men forge on to the goal. The
+surging throngs of a great city, the active hands and brains in the
+bee-hives of industry and the many places of business, the vast army of
+seekers after knowledge in the schools and colleges throughout the land,
+the men of fame in the halls of Congress molding the affairs of the
+Nation, the countless army tilling the fields under the open sky, the
+legions in the dark caves of earth searching for treasure--all are seeking
+to enter the golden gate of success.</p>
+
+<p>Said Mr. A. B. Farquhar in a baccalaureate address to the students of
+McDonough College: "Success colors everything. It is the essence of all
+excellencies, the latent power which compels the 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>reality</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We must confess, however, that the age in which we live is one of brick
+and mortar; that materialism and not &aelig;stheticism 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, at the expense of breadth, richness, and beauty, appear as
+mad as the Crusades, and perhaps of a lower type of madness? Could
+anything be more indicative of a slight but general insanity than the
+aspect of the crowd on the streets of Chicago?" Why is it that the poems
+that have lived for centuries, and the masterpieces of the world's great
+painters and sculptors are not being equaled in the dawn of the twentieth
+century? The answer lies in the widespread devotion to realism instead of
+idealism. The immortals have joined the mortals in search for the Fleece
+of Gold. And Wordsworth's oft-quoted lines were never more applicable to
+us than now:</p>
+
+<blockquote>  The world is too much with us; late and soon,<br />
+  Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.</blockquote>
+
+<p>All the capital in the universe does not stand for success unless there is
+set over against it the wealth of soul which Marcus Aurelius, that great
+apostle of plain living and high thinking, ever set forth as an antidote
+to the treadmill grind of commercial life. Shakespeare struck the keynote
+of this lofty conception of life, and pronounced a never-dying eulogy upon
+the supreme dignity of character when he said:</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "Who steals my purse steals trash; ...<br />
+But he that filches from me my good name<br />
+Robs me of that which not enriches him,<br />
+And makes me poor indeed."</blockquote>
+
+<p>Wealth of soul is incomparably better than all that can be obtained from
+pomp and luxury. Charlemagne is said to have worn in his crown a nail
+taken from the cross on which the Savior was crucified. He wore it among
+the jewels of his diadem as a reminder that there existed a tenderer
+relation in life than kingdoms and material splendor. Thus in the crown of
+our success, if we would make it truly great, we must place the sublimer
+elements of our being. As the ivy softens the roughness of the mountain
+side and the unsightly ruin, so will the aesthetic mellow and subdue the
+intense commercialism with which we are surrounded. Without this quality
+our success becomes like the fabled apples on the brink of the Dead
+Sea--fair without, but ashes within.</p>
+
+<p>If the avenue to success lay in one direction only--that of accumulating a
+fortune, little incentive would be felt by those in the lower walks of
+life. Moreover, if it were possible for all men to become millionaires,
+the very organization of human society would become disrupted; for who
+then would till the soil, run the factories, clean the streets? Nature has
+been wise in the distribution of her talents. Anticipating the havoc of
+endowing all mankind with equal powers, she established a wide diversity
+in the range of human ability. To one she has given the gift of sagacity
+to achieve success in the world of trade; to another mechanical skill to
+create the ideals of inventive genius into reality; to another the highly
+artistic sense, and withholding these higher attributes from still others,
+she has chosen to endow them with a wealth of muscular force that the
+physical requirements of organized human effort might be made effective.
+So that any way we choose to look at this question we must concede that
+temporal wealth does not constitute the broadest idea of success, nor is
+capable in itself of producing it.</p>
+
+<p>Even failure may be an element of a glorious success. The volcano that
+pours its vengeance upon the fair plantation below, leaving wreck and ruin
+in its path, bestows a wealth of sulphur which plays an important part in
+the world of commerce. The same frost that kills the harvest of a season
+also destroys the locust, preserving the harvests of a century. The death
+of the cocoon is the production of the silk, and the failure of the
+caterpillar the birth of the butterfly. If the boy Newton had not failed
+utterly on the farm, he would never have been started in college to become
+the mighty man of science. The fall of Rome meant the rise of the German
+Empire. "All men," says Frederick Arnold, "need through errors attain to
+truth, through struggles to victory, through regrets to that sorrow which
+is a very source of life. Men must rise in an ever-ascending scale, like
+the ladder of St. Augustine, by which men, through stepping-stones of
+their dead selves rise to higher things; or those steps of Alciphron,
+which crumbled away into nothingness as fast as each foot-fall left
+them." Thus our very failures we may overrule and convert into
+stepping-stones to success. Lifted to a loftier sphere, to a nobler
+experience, we are apt to receive greater benefit than though we escaped
+disappointment and rejoiced in easy fruition.</p>
+
+<p>Success does not consist in not encountering difficulties, but in
+overcoming them. If Jason is to have the golden fleece he must pass
+between the dangerous rocks, he must encounter the dragon, yoke to the
+plow the fire-breathing bulls, and subdue a regiment of armed men. If
+Joseph had not been Egypt's prisoner, he would never have been Egypt's
+governor. If Millet had not passed through the valley of sorrow, he could
+never have painted the "Angelus." The Restoration in England that gave
+Charles II a throne, drove Milton into absolute seclusion, and the last
+twelve years of his life were passed in enforced isolation. But this
+blind, deserted, broken-hearted, but illustrious scholar and poet,
+conquered despair, triumphed over every misfortune, and gave to the world
+those three great poems which have made his name immortal. Even poverty,
+which has been a hardship to the individual, has proved a boon to himself
+and to the cause of humanity. Science teaches us that ordinary mud has in
+it elements which, arranged according to the higher laws of nature,
+produce the opal, the sapphire, and the diamond. Likewise does history
+teach us that from the morass of poverty the commonest types of men have
+passed from stage to stage through the refining processes of experience
+till they have dazzled the world with their magnificence. Whether it be a
+slave like &AElig;sop, a beggar like Homer, a peasant like Raphael, or a
+marble-cutter like Socrates, we see them at last wearing the diadem of a
+brilliant success.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the foremost in all nations and in all branches have, as a rule,
+risen from the ranks of the poor and lowly. Shakespeare held horses for a
+few pennies a night in front of a London theater, and later did menial
+service back of the scenes. Disraeli was an office boy, Carlyle a
+stone-mason's attendant, and Ben Jonson was a bricklayer. Morrison and
+Carey were shoemakers, Franklin was a printer's apprentice, Burns a
+country plowman, Stephenson a collier, Faraday a bookbinder, Arkwright a
+barber, and Sir Humphrey Davy a drug clerk. Demosthenes was the son of a
+cutler, Verdi the son of a baker, Blackstone the son of a draper, and
+Luther was the son of a miner. Butler was a farmer, Hugh Miller a
+stone-cutter, Abraham Lincoln a rail-splitter, and James Garfield was a
+canal boy. One-half of the Presidents of the United States were left
+orphans at an early age, left to make their way through the world alone.
+History reveals clearly that it has been not the sons of the rich, but
+the sons of poverty that have "compelled the favor of fortune and
+subjugated fate."</p>
+
+<p>Neither rank nor genius nor any other natural endowment forms the only
+true basis of success. A right disposition, a desire and determination,
+founded on the sub-structure of right purpose, to cope with the problems
+that confront you, constitute the real basis of achievement. In short, the
+only demands which success makes of you is that you act with the most of
+yourself, bringing all your faculties to bear upon what you have to do;
+instilling your best effort into the infinite detail that goes to make up
+the great finality of your life. To this end, the systematic development
+of the whole man, body, mind, and soul, in such a manner as to bring you
+into right relation with things as they are and ought to be, is the
+paramount question.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, education is the only passport to success. I do not mean that
+education that is restricted to institutions of learning. These, while
+possessing a decided advantage, by no means have a monopoly of learning.
+Genius finds opportunity in the great laboratories of nature. Every man
+has within himself an educational organization presided over by a full
+faculty; and nature's wonderful book is ever open to him, if only he will
+lay hold upon the lessons it would teach him. This type of education which
+is the drawing out toward all things the latent forces from within, and
+the broadening out for greater usefulness, means the acquisition of
+ability to meet every emergency and the establishment of high ideals.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, in the race for success, the proper nourishment of the brain is
+an essential part of self-development. The brain is substantially the
+great artist that creates our ideals in life. And yet we forget sometimes
+that it is the master of our destiny; and allow it to sink into that dull
+apathy so fatal to our hopes and aims. It would almost seem, indeed, as if
+a kind of fatality clung to some men in the way in which they neglect this
+supreme faculty of their being. You possess the power to use your brain as
+you choose; but not the right, morally, for society demands of you a high
+standard of thinking, since it is the only rational basis for a free
+government. Thus it is as much your duty properly to nourish your brain as
+to give proper care to the body.</p>
+
+<p>In the rigid economy of modern life we should use extreme care in the
+selection of our reading. Our best interests demand more of us than a
+gormandizing of newspapers or ephemeral reading of any kind. Far be it
+from me to disparage that great organ of the times--the newspaper, which
+is a source of keen delight and benefit to us all, and almost the only
+source of instruction to thousands of the race. But we should be judicious
+in this, and not allow transitional matter to monopolize our time. "Read
+not the times, read the eternities," cried Thoreau. The shelves of our
+home and public libraries are filled with priceless volumes yet unread by
+us. And he who is not cultivating a taste for good wholesome reading is
+missing one of the highest enjoyments of life as well as minimizing his
+chances for success. We should ever be exploring new regions of thought.
+And in the extreme activity of this electric age we shall be obliged to
+take snap shots at our reading--on the street car, in the lunch room,
+anywhere we find it possible to peruse a single page.</p>
+
+<p>If we look into the lives of some of the illustrious ones we shall find
+that they obtained knowledge under the greatest disadvantages. We see
+Lincoln reading his favorite volumes by the dim light of a pineknot blaze;
+or Burritt poring over his books at the forge; or Garfield gazing intently
+at the pages while riding a mule on the banks of a canal. Wesley likewise
+diligently searched the Scriptures while riding horseback over the
+country; William Cobbett learned grammar while a common soldier on the
+march; and we are told that Alexander the Great, each night on retiring,
+would place his favorite book, the "Iliad," under his pillow and during
+his waking moments would peruse its pages.</p>
+
+<p>But the high intellectual plane of present-day civilization demands more
+of us than the world demanded then, when the avenues to honor and to power
+lay over fields of conquest, and the passport to favor was the sword. The
+complex problems of today call for a more thorough cultivation of our
+mental powers, which, to bring into play upon the multifarious concerns of
+our life, is the object of broad education. A well cultivated mind makes a
+man monarch of all that he surveys; and no one can be said to be truly
+successful who has not invaded the empire of thought in search for the
+imperishable Fleece of Gold.</p>
+
+<p>Success, then, in the highest sense, is a full realization of the highest
+wealth of body, mind, and soul. And while it does not disparage material
+aggrandizement, it makes it subservient, ever looking to an equalization
+of the greater revenues of life. Like truth it consists in a right
+proportion of things; and like character, is inherent in the nature of the
+individual. Success must embrace all the cardinal virtues. It must arise
+from the harmonious and fullest use of all the faculties. In its essence,
+it is the aggregate of those things which we have acquired, and which we
+are putting to a wise and useful purpose. The way of life is strewn with
+those who have done fairly well. Excellence is the golden quality to seek.
+Success, like a commodity, has its price, and he who would have it must be
+willing to pay. You can not buy it on a bargain counter; it is a staple
+product and demands full value--the sublimest qualities of your being.</p>
+
+<p>  "In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves for a bright manhood,
+  there is no such words as--fail."</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name="03"></a>III</h1>
+
+<h2>The Messenger of Fate</h2>
+
+<h3>"They Seized the Favorable Moment."</h3>
+
+
+
+<blockquote>    Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer
+  you.... It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried
+  forever, and to-morrow we may never see.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  --Victor Hugo.</blockquote>
+
+
+<blockquote>  Master of human destinies am I;<br />
+Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,<br />
+Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate<br />
+Deserts and seas remote, and passing by<br />
+Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late<br />
+I knock unbidden once at every gate;<br />
+If sleeping wake; if feasting, rise before<br />
+I turn away. It is the hour of fate,<br />
+And they who follow me reach every state<br />
+Mortals desire and conquer every foe<br />
+Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,<br />
+Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,<br />
+Seek me in vain and uselessly implore;<br />
+I answer not and I return no more.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  --John J. Ingalls.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>Opportunity</h3>
+
+<p>The famous statue, "Take Time by the Forelock," was a masterpiece of
+Greek sculpture. A noted Athenian orator, Callistratus, has given us a
+picture of the work of art: "Opportunity was a boy in the flower of his
+youth, handsome in mien, his hair fluttering at the caprice of the wind,
+leaving his locks disheveled. Like Dionysius, his forehead shone with
+grace, and his cheeks glowed with splendor. With winged feet to indicate
+swiftness, he stood upon a sphere, resting upon the tips of his toes as
+if ready for flight. His hair fell in thick curls from his brow, easy to
+take hold upon. But upon the back of his head there were only the
+beginnings of hairy growths, and, when he had once passed, it was not
+possible to seize him."</p>
+
+<p>An ancient legend gives us a more vivid idea of the significance of
+the statue:</p>
+
+<p>"Who art thou?"</p>
+
+<p>"Time, the all-subduer."</p>
+
+<p>"Why standest thou on tiptoe?"</p>
+
+<p>"I speed ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Why hast thou double wings on each foot?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fly with the wind."</p>
+
+<p>"But why is thy hair over thine eye?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be grasped by him who meets me."</p>
+
+<p>"The back of thy head, why is it bald?"</p>
+
+<p>"When once I have rushed by, with winged feet, one can never grasp me
+from behind."</p>
+
+<p>In its literal significance, however, opportunity means something either
+"in front of the door" or "outside of the harbor." For when the word first
+crept into common speech it created two pictures,--that of a ship with
+sails unfurled, riding at anchor, ready to start upon her unknown voyage,
+with just a moment to spare to catch her before the sails are bent; or the
+picture of a veiled figure standing for an instant at the door of one's
+life, knocking with sharp, swift strokes and then, if no answer comes,
+passing away into the darkness, refusing to be recalled.</p>
+
+<p>In all the vocabulary of human speech no other word rings with truer
+eloquence, or speaks with greater triumph, than that one
+word,--opportunity. Born in the primeval forest of man's first
+dwelling-place, it has marked the central path of civilization and hewn
+its way to the front with unerring stroke. The finger of destiny ever
+points back to this factor in human life as the primal element in all
+achievement, the forerunner of all success. Without it human genius
+would die, man's talent and skill waste away, and the hope of the race
+would vanish.</p>
+
+<p>Opportunity is the good angel that reveals the true issues of life,
+unfolding the bud of possibility into the full-blown flower of progress.
+It is the remorseless foe of sleepy monotony, awakening the passions in
+the soul, rousing our powers to action. At the door of your life and mine
+comes this silent, veiled figure, its hands laden with wealth, knocking
+for admission. But, alas! it has been too often with us as George Eliot
+with such tragic pathos has put it: "The golden moments in the stream of
+life rush past us and we see nothing but sand. The angels come to visit us
+and we know them only when they are gone."</p>
+
+<p>There has been no period of time since God whirled out of chaos this
+universe of wonders whose every moment did not hold for some one,
+somewhere, some kind of opportunity. Man is the only creature under heaven
+that has been privileged to walk with his face skyward to gaze upon the
+stars, to behold the opportunities of life as they surge along his
+pathway. In her wisdom, nature has given our eyes the power of both the
+telescope and the microscope, that we may see our opportunities afar and
+rightly discern them when they come within our reach.</p>
+
+<p>Do not regard your opportunities as mere visages floating in the horizon
+of your life, or autumn leaves driven by the winds of chance across your
+path. Every opportunity far from being a thing of chance, is a product of
+definite causes. Opportunity is unrealized possibility supplemented by
+conditions favorable for the execution of a purpose. And the power lies
+within you to create circumstances. That skillful artist, the human brain,
+draws a mental picture--an idea, the judgment approves, the will renders
+a decision to create that idea into actual being; in other words, gives it
+a soul, and then we have opportunity made real by the process of a
+creative force.</p>
+
+<p>We are apt to regard this quality in our existence as a somewhat
+superhuman term, an abstraction beyond the realm of common life, or at
+most an asset within the reach of a favored few; whereas it is a common
+attribute playing a potential part in our every-day activities. In its
+very nature opportunity is democratic and goes, like a wayfarer, knocking
+at the gates of every man's life.</p>
+
+<p>This messenger of fate, however, will not knock at the door of that man
+who is unable to meet the demands it would make upon him. It ever
+recognizes the eternal fitness of things, since it looks to its own
+promotion as well as the promotion of him who seeks to embrace it.
+Opportunity, then, is not opportunity at all if a man is not equal to it.
+When the steam engine lay in its elementary state in the great laboratory
+of nature, it was an opportunity for James Watt; and by his accepting it,
+opportunity realized its own fulfillment, became its own blessing and a
+blessing to all mankind. The unskilled laborer who dug out the ore could
+not claim this opportunity because he was not equal to its requirements.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, every man is himself an opportunity of infinite greatness. And
+he who depends upon the world alone to furnish him opportunities is
+destined to meet with failure. Self-reliance is the passport to
+success. The man who is continually bemoaning a lack of opportunity
+acknowledges his own lack of resources--is wanting in creative force.
+Every golden moment is an opportunity for him to step out from the
+shadows into the sunshine. Optimism sees opportunity in the ordinary
+jog-trot of daily duty.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most valuable assets which we can possess is the ability to
+mold from the adverse circumstances about us our opportunities. And "a
+wise man," says Bacon, "will make more opportunities than he finds." When
+Michael Angelo takes the castaway rock which he finds in his path and
+carves from it "The Young David;" when Herschel at the midnight hour,
+after playing his violin for a living, goes out and studies the star-lit
+skies, the field of his immortal conquest; when Elihu Burritt, working at
+the forge, grapples with mathematics, and masters several languages; when
+obstacles are overcome, and adversity yields to the invincible wills of
+men, then has opportunity by this self-made principle been hewn out of
+the very stumbling blocks which were in the way.</p>
+
+<p>Every man is a treasury of untold wealth. He is not great merely for what
+he is, but for the greatness of his possibility--that undreamed grandeur
+which opportunity is ever seeking to reveal. True greatness does not
+emanate from the power of genius so much as it does from the wise
+discrimination which we exercise in the choice of our opportunities, and
+the intelligence with which we lay hold upon them. It is a fine art in
+life to know just the thing to do, and the opportune moment for doing it.
+Eternal vigilance is the price we must pay, and the constant whetting of
+our faculties.</p>
+
+<p>Our life is a succession of opportunities. Yet however numerous they may
+be, or however bright, they are not availing until placed into the
+crucible of experience. Gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds--all
+the precious jewels imbedded in the treasure-house of nature, become
+valuable to us only when we dig them out, polish and shape them for our
+use. Likewise our opportunities enrich us only as we reach out after them
+and make them an abiding element in our life.</p>
+
+<p>But to know one's opportunity when he sees it, is the secret of life's
+great problem. "Know thy opportunity," is the motto of Pittacus of
+Mitylene, one of the seven wise men. It is inscribed in the temple of
+Apollo at Delphi. And each day, in the temple of our memory, we should
+write it anew. For the practical question is not whether we are making the
+most of our opportunities, but whether we are conscious of them at all.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, to know them <i>instantly</i> as well as to know them instinctively
+is essential to our well-being. When Victor Hugo charges us to take all
+reasonable advantage of that which the present offers, he reveals the true
+character of opportunity. It lives only in the present tense, it knows no
+to-morrows, and makes a record of the yesterdays only when it has found
+lodgment in our lives.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose DeWitt Clinton, denounced and ridiculed, had been led into the
+belief that his idea was a mere phantom, a mystic nightmare, the Erie
+Canal would not be a reality. Suppose Robert Fulton had accepted the
+issuing vapor of the tea-kettle as a mere phenomenon without seeking in it
+the opportunity for a mighty purpose; suppose that Cyrus W. Field or
+Marconi, or Edison or Ericsson, or the hundreds of others who by their
+inventive genius have been a blessing to mankind, had been contented with
+simply dreaming of the stupendous undertakings which they achieved!</p>
+
+<p>It is the man who knows his opportunities when he sees them, who grips
+them as they pass, who stands at the door of his activities ready to
+welcome and turn to good account each new opportunity that comes, that is
+the typically successful man. Many young men have had noble ideas, backed
+by strong convictions, but failing to "strike while the iron was hot,"
+have let their convictions die, the mental picture of their ideals vanish,
+and to their sorrow have seen them wrought by another into reality.</p>
+
+<p>And below this class of men we will find a lower type--the man who is
+always waiting for something to turn up, and always missing it when it
+does. This is the man whom Dickens has immortalized in fiction in the
+familiar figure of Micawber. This class, however, is unmistakably
+diminishing in our day, but still there are many who seem to come just
+short of the prizes of life. They are always just too late for the
+opportunity that should have brought them fame and fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare has aptly portrayed that supreme moment in life which we call
+opportunity:</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "There is a tide in the affairs of men,<br />
+Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;<br />
+Omitted, all the voyage of their life<br />
+Is bound in shallows and in miseries."</blockquote>
+
+<p>And the annals of human experience are filled and overflowing with
+achievements--examples of opportunities that were laid hold upon at just
+the critical moment of the tide.</p>
+
+<p>When the armies of Saul and Goliath were encamped in the valley of Elah,
+an opportunity was given to every soldier in Israel to meet the Philistine
+giant, but the youthful shepherd, David, alone accepted it, and his name
+has been praised for thirty centuries.</p>
+
+<p>An unlettered girl, a peasant in France, saw an opportunity to save the
+glory of her country, and with a courage that baffles human understanding
+Joan of Arc went forth to conquer.</p>
+
+<p>When George III of England ascended the throne and began to oppress the
+Colonists, an opportunity was created for the American people to act. With
+sublime patriotism they arose to the occasion in defense of their rights,
+and historians allude to the inspiring event as the opening scene in the
+Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>And when, by a stroke of diplomacy, Thomas Jefferson purchased from
+Napoleon Bonaparte the Louisiana Territory, one million square miles,
+or over six hundred millions of acres, for two cents and a half an
+acre, an opportunity was seized whose benefit to the American Nation no
+one can estimate.</p>
+
+<p>But if you would know a grand hero in whose life opportunity shone like
+Mars, read the life of Ulysses S. Grant--the man out of whose very
+failures evolved a most brilliant success. When, standing with leaden
+heart in the little store at Galena, the opportunity for a military life
+came knocking at the door, he welcomed it. For when morning broke on the
+12th of April, 1861, and the first guns of the Civil War roared upon
+Sumter, Grant marched to the front, and soon became a brigadier-general
+"The spur of disappointed hopes, the fire of his ambition, and the iron
+will that lay back of many of his failures--all the qualities latent in
+the man of coming greatness, sprang into mighty being."</p>
+
+<p>A gigantic opportunity next confronted him, for yonder on the banks of
+the Cumberland frowned the massive walls of Fort Donelson. Behind them
+Buckner's gray legions stood ready for action. It was the hour of fate.
+Grant pressed on, the Confederates surrendered the stronghold, and the
+first Union victory was won. Shiloh and Vicksburg, Cold Harbor and
+Petersburg, Richmond and Appomattox, and many other glorious victories
+tell the story of opportunities masterfully grasped.</p>
+
+<p>Our country is the land of "the golden fleece," and wherever you may be in
+its vast domain, you are the one who must answer for yourself the
+stupendous question--"To what height shall I attain?" You are like the man
+in the "Arabian Nights" dropped into a valley filled with diamonds. It is
+within your power to select that which is most valuable for your
+enrichment. There are splendid opportunities on every hand, and whether
+you shall grasp them or let them go, remains alone for you to determine.</p>
+
+<p>The door of opportunity for the highest development of every individual,
+in every phase of life, is ever open. Every golden moment holds something
+of value for the earnest seeker, just as every flower holds in its bosom a
+treasure for the thrifty bee. No one of us may ever have such splendid
+opportunities as did the illustrious ones to whom we owe our present
+inheritance. But at the threshold of our lives will ever come the veiled
+figure with its gifts, and, however modest may be the treasures which it
+brings, if we accept them and turn to good account all that they hold of
+value to us, our reward will be truly great.</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "Pull many a gem of purest ray serene,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;<br />
+Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And waste its sweetness on the desert air."</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name="04"></a>IV</h1>
+
+<h2>The Active Hand</h2>
+
+<h3>"They Plied Their Oars With Vigor"</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote>  "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  "Count that day lost whose low descending sun<br />
+Views from thy hand no worthy action done."</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h3>The Individual Problem</h3>
+
+
+<p>With steady, even, and vigorous stroke the young heroes from Hellas ply
+their oars, and the blue waters of the Euxine are flecked with foam. Here
+is an ideal picture. A band of enterprising young men, alert, active,
+ambitions--a scene typical of the highest conception of life. It has ever
+been scenes like this that have challenged the admiration of the world.
+And the plaudits of men and of angels attend the young man today who has a
+worthy object in view, who believes in himself, and bends to the oars with
+might and main.</p>
+
+<p>An "active hand" symbolizes usefulness and thrift. Has it ever occurred
+to you what a wonderful piece of mechanism is that hand with which Nature
+has equipped you for seizing the oars of life's activities? Galen, the
+famous anatomist, after a prolonged study of the human hand, conceiving
+it to be the proximate instrument of the soul, was forced to renounce
+atheism, to acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being. Scientists
+regard the human hand as being the most remarkable organ, not vital, in
+the whole animal kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>It is conceded to be, also, the most pronounced physical characteristic
+differentiating man from the lower animals. The chimpanzee and the
+gorilla, closely allied to the human species in many respects, are
+noticeably deficient in the use of their modified hands; being able to
+grasp things only in a cumbersome way. The squirrel handles a nut with
+agility, the beaver builds his dam, and likewise do many other animals
+accomplish much with certain deftness. But the grace, suppleness, and
+precision, so characteristic of the human hand, are lacking. Only in man
+does the organ attain perfection. He alone enjoys the distinction of being
+able to manipulate thumb and forefinger in combination, enabling him to
+attain a high degree of skill.</p>
+
+<p>The hand is the organ of the fifth and last sense, and the only one of the
+five which is active. When the other organs of sense fail it comes to
+their rescue--the blind man reads with his hand and the dumb man speaks
+with it. Being an active organ it gives expression to man's capabilities:
+Put a sword into it and it will fight, a plow and it will till, a harp and
+it will play, a brush and it will paint.</p>
+
+<p>The invention of every machine conceives its first principles in the
+structure of the human hand; and every working part of that machine bears
+a relation in its function to a corresponding part in the mechanism of the
+hand. In fact, physics teaches us that the hand is a combination of the
+six mechanical powers--the lever, the wedge, the wheel and axle, the
+pulley, the screw, and the inclined plane. But the mechanical effect is
+always depreciated. In manufacture hand-made goods excel those made by
+machine. In art the exquisite hand-painting surpasses the lithograph. No
+mechanical device, however efficacious, can produce symphonies or pictures
+or works of any kind with the high degree of excellence of which the hand
+is capable.</p>
+
+<p>But aside from its mechanical functions, this wonderful organ is a
+revelation of the secrets of human nature. Graphology enables us to read
+the character of a person in the hand-writing which he produces. Ages and
+ages ago the Hindus read the hand itself as the physical expression of the
+inner man; they read character by the science of palmistry as we read it
+by that of physiognomy; and some profess to translate the delicate tracery
+today into language that speaks clearly of both past and future. The hand
+is the expression of dishonesty when it steals, of charity when it gives,
+of anger when it smites, of love when it caresses. And one has called it
+the key to that cabinet of character in which Nature conceals, not only
+the motive power of every-day life, but those latent talents and energies
+that, by the knowledge of self, we can bring to bear upon our lives.</p>
+
+<p>So that this member of our physical organization holds an office of
+supreme dignity and importance in the issues of our lives. It is this
+marvel of mechanism, overruled and directed by the higher power of
+intellect, which elevates man to his high position. And, whether it be the
+hand of the galley slave, or the hand that sways the scepter over an
+empire, the supreme purpose is revealed-they are alike designed to be the
+instruments of usefulness and power.</p>
+
+<p>Even the brain cannot ignore the relative importance of the hand. It
+cannot say to the hand: "I have no need of thee." The captain cannot man
+his ship without the aid of subordinates. Neither can the brain pilot us
+through the activities of life without the aid of hands. A brilliant mind
+is a priceless possession; but all the mental acumen of the universe is
+not availing unless supplemented by those inferior officers--the hands.
+The clothes which you wear once were on the back of a sheep grazing on
+some distant hillside. The chair in which you sit once swayed in the
+forest midst the soughing winds. The pen with which I am writing once was
+imbedded deep in some far-away mountain range. But that occult genius--the
+human brain, conceived the idea of creating that wool, and wood, and ore
+into a higher state of usefulness, and at this juncture was compelled to
+acknowledge the infinite necessity of a co-worker; hence, the brain
+employs the hand as an external agent to put into force the impressions
+which it--the brain--receives from the phenomena of nature.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the law of your growth is contingent upon the exercise of these
+faculties. The brain is the judicial function and the hand the executive.
+Together these two powers qualify you for the master-workman. If you allow
+them to exist in the passive sense, you become an apathetic segment in
+the midst of a great world pulsing with life around you. You merely add
+one to the population, instead of counting for a potential and energizing
+influence. If you lift the weight of a clock the smallest fraction of an
+inch, the mechanism will cease to operate. And the relaxation of your will
+from the great obligation of life will cause your powers to atrophy and
+improperly to perform their work. With Browning, "Man was made to grow,
+not stop."</p>
+
+<p>Activity and not atrophy is the law of life. Action is the expression of
+that vital force called energy, and energy moves the world. The keynote of
+the natural world is action: the earth revolves, the river moves in its
+course, the tempest rages, the mountain acts from volcanic phenomena,
+vegetation grows, etc. In every tiny seed lies concealed this mysterious
+force--only a spark of life which, encouraged by nature, springs into a
+waving harvest.</p>
+
+<p>This very quality is synonymous with the reality of life. The human mind
+ostensibly has an aversion to lifelessness. We turn instinctively from
+the dead and withered branch to the blossoming flower; from the stagnant
+pool to the dashing cataract, and every healthy mind finds delight in
+such terms as vim, vigor, energy, and activity, which are the chief
+natural characteristics of the human hand. Demosthenes on being asked
+what is the first element in oratory, replied, "Action:" when asked to
+state the second element, he replied "Action," and when questioned as to
+the third, he made the same reply. Action, first, last, and all the time,
+is the great principle of life and progress. Without it the most perfect
+engine, gigantic in proportions and costly in equipment, is a dead
+thing, valueless as the formless mass of ore it once was. But that
+marvelous product of man's hand and brain, plus steam, becomes a
+veritable giant of power.</p>
+
+<p>Now this same law applies in relation to our bodies in general. Action is
+an essential as seen in the beating heart, the throbbing pulse, the
+coursing blood, and various other functions. In fact, the body is the
+engine that runs the machinery of our lives. Generating energy and storing
+it up, it gives impetus to all that we achieve. With all its mysteries,
+beauty, and strength, this human organism is worthless, a burden to
+society unless vitalized with that majestic force that makes man
+industrious.</p>
+
+<p>In the words of a great man, "Nature fits all her children with something
+to do." The first man on earth was a gardener. Milton hears Adam
+conversing with Eve thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "Man hath his daily work of body or mind<br />
+Appointed, which declares his dignity,<br />
+And the regard of Heaven on all his ways;<br />
+While other animals inactive range,<br />
+And of their doings God takes no account.<br />
+To-morrow ere fresh morning streaks the east<br />
+With first approach of light, we must be ris'n<br />
+And at our pleasant labor, to reform<br />
+Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green."</blockquote>
+
+<p>Work is the great law of life. "No man," says Lowell, "is born into the
+world whose work is not born with him. There is always work and tools to
+work withal, for those who will; and blessed are the horny hands of toil."
+True work, the judicious employment of our powers for the accomplishment
+of the noblest object in life, is the only thing that will satisfy the
+waiting capacity of men and women. Neither gold nor scholarship nor any
+other acquisition can meet the requirement like the application of one's
+self to some kind of work. Work is a tonic which exuberates mentally,
+morally, and physically the man who wisely adjusts himself to it. And he
+who is able to work and refuses is out of harmony with nature.</p>
+
+<p>The cardinal question of life is that of achievement. In every human
+being there is the desire to rise to something great. The most
+thoughtless boy on the street looks serious as the Presidential carriage
+rolls past. In the deep recesses of his nature there is kindled by the
+spectacle a momentary yearning for fame--he would like to be President
+some day. Likewise does every man, when he seriously views the pageantry
+of life's ideals and purposes, have aspiration, for such is the natural
+state of man.</p>
+
+<p>The allurements of a passive life are known to them only who have no
+knowledge of the charms of an active life. Leisure is found only in the
+dictionary of the slothful. Dionysius is asked if he is at leisure, and
+rebukes the question, saying, "God forbid that it should ever befall me."
+The indulgence in the activities of life comprises not only ultimate
+accomplishment, but is productive of present enjoyment as well. And not
+infrequently does the pursuit of an object give more pleasure than the
+possession of it. Expectation often outshines experience. Therefore, all
+should cultivate a taste for work, which, through the alchemy of
+influence, transmutes duty into privilege.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, it is fundamental in the law of success that one's pursuit must
+be congenial if he is to excel. On the contrary, however, lassitude can
+not be condoned if we find ourselves engaged in uncongenial employment. No
+kind of work, to the man who possesses dominion over his feelings and his
+faculties, is painful but proceeds with pleasure when once the habit of
+industry is acquired.</p>
+
+<p>Our efforts should not be casual, but causal. He who does most and does it
+well, becomes most. Horatius received as much land as he could plow around
+in a day. And you and I get each day just as much as, by putting our hand
+to the plow of activity, we are able to encompass by faithful plodding.
+Hard work is the price of all that is valuable. All the great strides in
+the world's achievements were made possible only by forced activity and
+prolonged effort. Spontaneity is a foreign element in the process of
+healthy and rugged development. The spider spins its web and the morning
+bespangles it with dew, creating a thing of beauty, but valueless. It
+would require the entire existence of several hundred silkworms to produce
+an equal amount of silk fabric. The mushroom grows up in a night, and dies
+in the glare of the morning sun; while the oak, struggling through the
+years, battling with the elements, lives a perpetual blessing to man.</p>
+
+<p>It is the intense struggle with the problems of life that produces in
+men the sturdy qualities. The short cuts to fame are few and not
+abiding. Success is not reached by a thornless path, but is attained by
+the path of plain, hard work. All things come to him who waits. Such is
+the very essence of an idle doctrine! All things come to him who works.
+Walter Scott working tirelessly in the attic while his companions below
+carouse the night away; Thoreau banishing himself into the lonely
+forest that he might prepare for larger usefulness; Dryden, "thinking
+on for a fortnight in a perfect frenzy;" Heyne, the German scholar,
+allowing himself "no more than two nights of weekly rest" for six
+months, that he might finish a course in Greek; Reynolds, the greatest
+portrait painter of England, applying his brush for thirty-six hours
+without stopping; Balzac, determined to be a king in literature,
+fighting his way with eternal diligence; William Pitt spurning
+difficulty and "trampling upon impossibility;" Elihu Burritt grappling
+with mathematics at the forge; or Isaac Newton turning his back upon a
+life of ease and setting off to college, where "the midnight wind swept
+over his papers the ashes of his long extinguished fire." These
+examples and thousands of others remind us that</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "Heights by great men reached and kept<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Were not attained by sudden flight;<br />
+But they while their companions slept,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Were toiling upward in the night."</blockquote>
+
+<p>They had brains and hands too active, ambitions too aggressive,
+aspirations too lofty for a quiet existence, and they pressed their way
+onward and upward till they stood near the summit of a lofty ideal.</p>
+
+<p>When Xerxes, that great Persian monarch, seated upon a throne of ivory and
+gold, viewed for the last time the magnificent array of his armies and his
+fleets, we read that he buried his face in his hands and wept, because he
+had reached the zenith of his glory; his ambition had been spent, his work
+had come to an end. And more desolate should be the man to-day who does
+not feel the passion of an earnest life, who does not yearn for some noble
+activity. He who sits with folded arms in the craft of civilization to be
+borne idly along while others ply the oars, must soon part company with
+the brave, loyal sons of activity to launch his idle bark in the dead
+waters of life, where the currents never come and the winds of energy are
+never felt.</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "At the flaming forge of life<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Our fortunes must be wrought;<br />
+On its sounding anvil shaped,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Each burning deed and thought."</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name="05"></a>V</h1>
+
+<h2>Ethics of Activity</h2>
+
+
+
+<blockquote>  "The busy world shoves angrily aside<br />
+The man who stands with arms akimbo set,<br />
+Till the occasion tells him what to do;<br />
+And he who waits to have his task marked out.<br />
+Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  --James Russell Lowell.</blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>A Man's Relation to Society</h3>
+
+<p>This question of activity is a twofold problem. In the preceding chapter
+we viewed it from the standpoint of the individual--as if he were the sole
+occupant of the boat, rowing toward a purely selfish end; going, as it
+were, in quest of the prize of life for purely personal aggrandizement.
+Whereas, strictly speaking, no man exists in a purely individualistic
+sense. He can not regard himself as separable from a social whole. Every
+individual is a vital element of an organized force working toward a
+mutual end. You are an integral factor, so to speak, of the social
+problem, but your value is determined by your relation to other quantifies
+in the complex system with which you are identified. As a segregated unit,
+you diminish in value.</p>
+
+<p>A combination of diverse and multi-form contributions assimilated from a
+complex human life, your being looks to many sources for its development;
+from the lowest phase of experience to the highest. These influences you
+must acknowledge as emanating from a social system--influences which you
+are totally powerless, alone, to exert upon yourself. For instance, a man
+can not be his own educator in all that the term implies--he can not make
+his own books, print his own newspapers; if he could he would have to look
+outside of himself for the data necessary for his use. In other words, no
+man lives to himself alone. He can no more be separated from the social
+order of things and retain character value, than any one of a hundred
+square inches of canvas in an oil painting, separated from the rest, would
+constitute a picture. A single note in a musical composition, however
+exquisite the piece may be, has comparatively little value taken by
+itself; only when it assumes relationship with other notes and becomes
+governed by the law of harmony, does it fulfill its mission and become a
+valuable factor.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as units of a social whole, we have obligations other than those
+affecting "individual" problems. Society has a rightful claim upon every
+one of its members. "You are not your own, you are bought with a price,"
+is true in a larger sense than a merely Scriptural one. For what one
+becomes is really, as already stated, but the effect of combined
+influences brought to bear upon one's life by the forces of human society.
+Therefore, society expects us to reciprocate, and is just in its claim;
+just as parents are entitled to the high esteem and reciprocation of their
+offspring. It demands of each one of us all that we are capable of
+producing, exacting the highest order of service as well. The paying of
+taxes does not placate the demands which society makes upon you. It
+demands yourself--body, mind, and soul--not in a passive sense, but in
+active relationship to your environment. And every man is morally bound
+to respect the claims thus made upon him.</p>
+
+<p>The highest socialistic conception is not that which contemplates an
+equitable distribution of property and labor. But assuming a more rational
+ground, it believes in equal rights to all; is based upon a right
+proportion of motives rather than upon the equalization of property
+considerations. It is both humanitarian and utilitarian. It seeks its own
+principally, yet is generous in the ulterior aim. This is the ideal
+relation between the individual and the social order. The greatest duty
+confronting each one in the world, and the one which all should earnestly
+embrace, is the duty of making the most of one's self with the ulterior
+view of contributing the largest measure of usefulness to his fellow-men.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, to employ an extreme example--and yet it is shown by
+statistics that there are one hundred thousand tramps and vagrants in this
+country--the man who folds his arms and defiantly proclaimes that the
+world owes him a living, mutinies against the sacred order of
+things--"fouls his own nest," as it were. To that man society replies: "If
+any man is not willing to work, neither let him eat." And this is the
+dominant note of the twentieth century as truly as it was in the first
+when spoken by the Roman philosopher. To harbor the doctrine that the
+world owes every man a living, not only discounts the character value of
+the individual, but has a reflex action on the entire social organism.
+Just as one wheel out of play in the mechanism of a watch throws the
+entire works out of order, or one team in a procession halting the whole
+train behind it, the individual failing to do his part affects the
+equilibrium of the whole. Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo and died in
+exile, a prisoner at St. Helena, because one of his marshals, failing to
+comply with orders, arrived too late with re-enforcements. Remember that
+you have an important part to perform, that, as in mathematics, you are a
+quantity so connected with another quantity that if any alteration be made
+in the former there will be a consequent alteration in the latter.</p>
+
+<p>In the busy hive of twentieth-century civilization scant space has been
+provided for drones. The drone is a minus quantity in the problem of life;
+instead of adding to the common weal, he is ever subtracting from it. Like
+an owl he sits in the gloom of indolence hooting at the caravan of events.
+The eye of the world is quick to observe the man who is resting on his
+oars. A more graphic picture of the man who is ever magnifying the world's
+duty to him, and minimizing his duty to the world, could not be painted
+than that one which James Russell Lowell has penned:</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "The busy world shoves angrily aside<br />
+  The man who stands with arms akimbo set."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The world has but one duty to this man, namely, to dispel the cloud from
+his vision and arouse him to worthy action.</p>
+
+<p>To contend that the world owes every man a living would be as
+preposterous as to assert that the government owes every citizen under the
+flag a pension. The world owes no man anything except that for which he
+pays a just equivalent. Every man is indebted to the world; he owes it all
+his best possessions--his talent, time, and effort. And the individual who
+attempts to throw off this yoke of duty is violating one of nature's great
+laws. Even the lower forms of life afford example of this supreme law.
+Solomon startles the sluggard with his sharp admonition to betake himself
+to the ant. And Sir John Lubbock points men to the insect world to learn
+real diligence and thrift.</p>
+
+<p>Individual stagnation means public pollution. The man who arms himself
+with a "rake," ever reaching out after something without giving an
+equivalent, instead of championing the "hoe," determined to exercise his
+faculties in the interests of humanity, becomes hostile to the noblest
+sentiment and the highest aims of society; as in the case of the tramps
+mentioned above who are a national menace, Idleness breeds vice. Industry
+enhances the virtues. When a man ceases to work he retrogrades; he becomes
+a stranger to lofty ideals and wholesome activities. The man with an
+ambition ever finds himself in the ascendency; while he who deplores the
+exercise of his powers, avoiding work as he would a powder magazine or a
+pest, is in the descendency toward a state of groveling and low ideals.
+And the difference between these two men marks the difference between
+success and failure.</p>
+
+<p>We are ever obligated to a great duty, namely, to reach the maximum of our
+possibilities. Our greatest prerogative in the economy of life is the wise
+husbanding of resources, and the skillful marshaling of our forces on the
+field of common duty. The great duty of leading a useful life confronts us
+always. We can by no stratagem, whatsoever, escape its presence. We ever
+hear its voice calling after us, and can no more flee from it than we can
+flee from the voice of conscience. Like Poe's raven, it sets up a never
+ceasing appeal at the door of our lives. Prudence forbids that we turn our
+back on this duty of self-devotion. For as Michael Angelo saw in the block
+of marble the hidden angel, a wise man sees in duty an infinite
+opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>Galileo was so absorbed in his pursuit that he forgot personal comfort and
+even personal safety, and lost his eyesight in quest of the mountains in
+the moon, the rings around Saturn and the "star-heaps" in the sky. And
+when that distinguished man of science, Professor Agassiz, was invited to
+lecture at a great price, his reply was, "I have no time to make money."
+Likewise did the great Spurgeon, when offered almost fabulous prices to
+cross the Atlantic and lecture, refuse because of a zealous devotion to
+the purpose of his life. And every one should learn that the thorough and
+faithful performance of duty is the first essential of a worthy life.</p>
+
+<p>Every human soul was made with some design, invested with the possibility
+of a useful life, a noble destiny. Whether it be the mercenary Greek
+vending his wares on the street corner, or the roaming Italian with his
+harp strapped over his shoulder, or the dissolute man behind prison bars
+paying the penalty of misspent days--all are invested with latent power
+and talent to fill a loftier place in the world. But, unfortunately, while
+most men have the desire, not all have the determination to rise above the
+ordinary and the common state in which they find themselves. This is a
+deplorable condition, seriously detracting from the sum of human
+greatness.</p>
+
+<p>Every man has been called for dominion. Each, in the divine plan, is to be
+a ruler in the universe, not a "mollusk with aimless revery;" he is to be
+a man with vitality, not "dead matter known only as avoirdupois." By this
+measure a man is not worth so much as a sheep which furnishes two
+substantial commodities--food and clothing. Minus the attributes which
+qualify him for a high rank, man is a being with a buried talent, only a
+unit in the great world around him. Plus these attributes, no system of
+mathematics can compute his worth.</p>
+
+<blockquote>  "Let me but do my work from day to day,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;In field or forest, at the desk or loom,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;In roaring market place, or tranquil room;<br />
+Let me but find it in my heart to say,<br />
+When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;'This is my work; my blessing not my doom;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Of all who live I am the one by whom<br />
+This work can best be done in the right way.'"</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Fleece of Gold, by Charles Stewart Given
+
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