If he sets out with small aims, he may accomplish them; but it is not a thing to boast of. It is better to fall below a high standard than to come up to a low one,--to try great things and fail, than to try only small ones and succeed. For he who attempts grandly will achieve much, while he whose very desires are small will make but small acquisitions. Of course, I am not speaking now of definite, measurable matters of fact, in which the reverse is the case. Of course, it is better to build a small house and pay for it, than to build a palace and involve yourself in debt. It is wiser to set yourself a reasonable task and perform it, than a prodigious one and do nothing. I am endeavoring to present only one side of a truth which is many-sided,--and that side is, that great deeds are done by those who aspire greatly. You may not attain perfection, but if you strive to be perfect, you will be better than if you were content to be as good as your neighbors. You are not, perhaps, the world's coming man; but if you aim at the completest possible self-development, you will be a far greater man than if your only aim is to keep out of the poor-house. "I have taken all knowledge to be my province," said Lord Bacon. He did not conquer; he could not even overrun his whole province; but he made vast inroads,--vaster by far than if he had designed only to occupy a garden-plot in the Delectable Land. True greatness is a growth, and not an accident. The bud, brought into light and warmth, may burst suddenly into flower; but the seed must have been planted, and the kindly soil must have wrapped it about, and shade and shine and shower must have wrought down into the darkness, and nursed and nurtured the tiny germ. The touch of circumstance may reveal, may even quicken, but cannot create, nobility.
This I reckon to be success in life,--fitness,--perfect adaptation. I hold him successful, and him only, who has found or conquered a position in which he can bring himself into full play. Success is perfect or partial, according as it comes up to, or falls below, this standard. But entire success is rare in this world. Success in business, success in ambition, is not success in life, though it may be comprehended in it. Very few are the symmetrical lives. Very few of us are working at the top of our bent. One may give scope to his mechanical invention, but his poetry is cramped. One has his intellect at high pressure, but the fires are out under his heart. One is the bond-servant of love, and Pegasus becomes a dray-horse, Apollo must keep the pot boiling, and Minerva is hurried with the fall sewing. So we go, and above us the sun shines, and the stars throb; and beneath us the snows, and the flowers, and the blind, instinctive earth; and over all, and in all, God blessed forever.
Now, then, success being the best thing, we do well to strive for it; but success being difficult to attain, if not unattainable, it remains for us to wring from our failures all the sap and sustenance and succor that are in them, if so be we may grow thereby to a finer and fuller richness, and hear one day the rapturous voice bid us come up higher.
And be it remembered, what a man is, not what a man does, is the measure of success. The deed is but the outflow of the soul. By their fruits ye shall know THEM. The outward act has its inward significance, though we may not always interpret it aright, and its moral aspect depends upon the agent. "In vain," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we admire the lustre of anything seen; that which is truly glorious is invisible."Character, not condition, is the trust of life. A man's own self is God's most valuable deposit with him. This is not egotism, but the broadest benevolence. A man can do no good to the world beyond himself. A stream can rise no higher than its fountain. A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.
If a man's soul is stunted and gnarled and dwarfed, his actions will be. If his soul is corrupt and base and petty, so will his actions be. Faith is the basis of works. Essence underlies influence. If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, and his soul be not filled with good, I say that an untimely birth is better than he.
When I see, as I sometimes do see, those whom the world calls unsuccessful, furnished with every virtue and adorned with every grace, made considerate through suffering, sympathetic by isolation, spiritedly patient, meek, yet defiant, calm and contemptuous, tender even of the sorrows and tolerant of the joys which they despise, enduring the sympathy and accepting the companionship of weakness because it is kindly offered, though it be a burden to be dropped just inside the door, and not a treasure to be taken into the heart's chamber, I am ready to say, Blessed are the unsuccessful.
