UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN STACKS NOTICE: Return or renew all Library Materialsl The Minimum Fee for each Lost Book is $50.00. The person charging this material is responsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for discipli- nary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/successfailureOOhort SUCCESS fc? FAILURE SUCCESS &P FAILURE BY ■ - ROBERT F. HORTON M.A. D.D. J NEW YORK DODD MEAD & COMPANY 149 151 FIFTH AVENUE 1897 no s SUCCESS AND FAILURE THE ADMIRATION OF SUCCESS I WILL confess myself at once a huge admirer of success. In this, I doubt not, I am at one with the majority of my kind. But, where I find myself at some variance with my fellow men is in the conception of suc- cess itself. Success, if I may define it in my own way, I can admire with the most ardent of them ; but what passes as success I find myself fre- quently quite unable to admire ; nay, it chills me with a comfortless dismay, as if one had clambered up to the sunlit mountain summit to stand in its lustrous gold and be bathed in its crimson splendour, and had found it 703109 6 Success and Failure cold and solitary, the weird meeting- place of terrors and the haunt of death. I daresay I carry a part of the majority with me when I confess that the success of a South African mil- lionaire affects me in this disastrous way. He comes home with a million or so, squarely earned by a deft method of separating the gold from the quartz ; and, by some dexterous passes in company - mongering, he easily makes his one million two, and then they of themselves propagate a third and a fourth, and spawn mon- strously into untold numbers. I ob- serve the astonished world bowing and ducking to him, cap in hand ; and the sallow denizens of Jewry are all aflame with ambition to go and do likewise. He is not troubled by un- comfortable memories ; he came by his wealth very honestly ; he parts with it generously and magnanimously ; and meanwhile he shines with a far- reaching and dazzling brilliance. He The Admiration of Success 7 goes down into the country and buys an ancestral house ; he sets the sleepy countryside agog, and floods it with workmen, building, laying out gardens, glass houses, pheasant coverts, and the rest. The time seems to have come when the prophecy is fulfilled, and ten men will take hold of one that is a Jew, saying, “We will go with thee, for we have heard that God is with you ” (Zech. viii. 23). And as the word “ success 19 is understood, this man is successful beyond the dreams of romance. And yet I pro- test that this kind of success appears to me neither brilliant nor admirable. I see the unhappy man suddenly in- volved in the gleaming folds of a monstrous python, that will inevitably throttle him. And I suppose that, while a few of the thoughtless envy him, most o£ the thoughtful pity him, and the pious pray for him. But where I part company from all, except a few, is in this, that success 8 Success and Failure of a far more unexceptionable kind leaves me cold and untouched. I must speak my mind, though it re- quires some courage to do so ; but a career like Lord Macaulay’s is to me positively oppressive. Sir George Trevelyan’s “ Life ” is admittedly a masterpiece in biography ; the picture drawn is perfectly faithful ; the career depicted is the most brilliant, yes, the most successful, achieved in England during this great century ; and yet, the book leaves me in a melancholy which I find it difficult to throw off. One may say that the monotony of success palls on the reader. Here is a man who* does faultlessly whatever he attempts. He writes essays, and all the world wonders. He enters Parlia- ment, or goes to administer India, with equal applause. He determines to write a 4< History ” which shall cut out the popular novel of the season, and he accomplishes it. He is raised to the Peerage, the first man of letters The Admiration of Success 9 ennobled for letters alone. “ Nothing occurred,” as his biographer says, “ that broke the monotony of an easy and rapid voyage.” And that kind of monotony is to the observer a little tiresome no doubt. But it is not the monotony of success which afflicts me in the life of Macaulay. It is rather that the whole life is lived, and lived with absolute success, on the plane and within the compass of this present world. So much an active, brilliant, and high-minded man can accomplish fn this world of ours. Unexcited by the possibilities of a future, interested and engrossed in literature, politics, society, so a man has lived and died with universal applause, and a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Here is no touch of failure, no weakness, where the forlorn brotherhood of the unsuc- cessful can come into momentary contact with their fellow man. Here is life rounded, complete, self-poised. Its only check is death ; if death were io Success and Failure out of the question it would be an un- broken success. And yet, if death did not come — what then ? Can one go on for ever writing fascinating reviews, and' dazzling the world with vivid, though not impartial, histories, talking with “ brilliant flashes of silence,” shining for the world to wonder at? No, if death did not come to one’s relief the thing would pall. And yet, when death comes, nothing has suggested any beyond. Here are no roots struggling towards “ the light which never was, on sea or land.” Here are no threads of a web which is incomplete straining towards completeness by-and-by. Here are no sighs and aspirations, no murmur of “ Had I the wings of a dove.” All is satisfied, rounded, composed, brought to its natural Finis with flourishes and decorum. Then per- haps, after all, life is a finished whole in itself ; and while almost all men are failures, here and there The Admiration of Success 1 1 comes a success, and this is the result. Needless to say, I am not criticising the great Whig historian. As for passing any judgment upon his soul, God forbid that I should even seem to do such a thing. But I am looking at this typical example of a successful life, the most successful life I know in literature, and I have to admit frankly that this success does not stir more than a very faint admiration in my mind. Its very completeness is what awakes misgiving. Its moral appears to me to be that human life, given the most absolute fulfilment of all its cherished aims, and the realisation of all its wildest ambitions, does not con- tain stuff enough to clothe a human soul. But let me say no more of Macaulay, or the reader will not accompany me a page farther. Kind reader, I de- precate your wrath. Cling to your Macaulay, if you will. Admire that dazzling success. Say that I was 1 2 Success and Failure envious, churlish, or at least mis- guided in my confession that the success does not fill me with a high admiration ; but come on with me a little longer, and let me try to assure you of my original statement that I am — like yourself — a huge admirer of success. Now will you be patient while I depict the kind of success which I am able to admire ? You observe, we are not discussing success in a particular undertaking, or what is generally called success in life ; about this we can only speak incidentally. What we are discussing is success absolutely. We want to know what would justify us in speaking of you, for example, as successful, when the tale is told and the end is reached. And success, when we are thinking of you } and not of your aims or transitory enterprises, can only be estimated by what you are, and what you might be, nay, what you are meant to be, and must / j The Admiration of Success 13 be, in order to be truly you. Now, regarded in this light, the ordinary use of tjhe word is very trivial. For what could be more absurd than to speak of a lnan as successful because he has made it his aim to be a good billiard- plaiyer, or to be a good acrobat, or to be, a good keeper of racehorses, and bis succeeded ? He is a successful billiard-player, or tumbler, or stable- man, but a successful man y no, unless it is conceivable that the Almighty designed “man, His last work,” to knock ivory balls into pockets, or to twist himself round on a trapeze, and stand balanced on his neighbour’s head, or to train a horse which over three miles of turf can get a neck’s length ahead of another horse. You do not yourself, I presume, admire a successful burglar, or a company promoter who succeeds in scuttling out of the undertaking just as the people he has inveigled are ruined. And I am only pushing the principle H Success and Failure a little farther when I say that success is only admirable if the end is ad-mir- able ; and, in the matter of a hinman soul, the only success that one can frankly admire is that secured by t.he soul becoming what God meant it to be. Success lies ) not in achieving what you aim at, but in aiming at what you ought to achieve , and pressing for- ward, sure of achievement here . or if not here , hereafter. Now we have our theme cleared, and we see what we are talking about. And you are at one with me ; for, in spite of all the false admirations and the hasty judgments which we hear and repeat ; in spite of the natural difficulty of with- holding admiration from what all the world says it admires ; in spite of the weak moments when a low success in business, in society, in art, seems se- ducing as a Siren’s voice, we are all at one ; when we go into ourselves and re- flect, we are so constituted by God that we are incapable of counting any one The Admiration of Success 15 absolutely successful who does not find Him and rest in Him ; and what in our hearts we genuinely admire, is that achievement of God, that settling of the life on Him and His will, and that discovery of Him as the only reality, which it was, and for ever is, the purpose of Christ to effect. But this leads me to observe that we are often under some delusion in the matter of what we really admire. We suppose that we admire what is generally considered admirable, and our exclama- tions of approval echo from lip to lip, while if ever we go down into our own hearts and inquire we may make the discovery that there is no genuine admiration there at all. We are all like sheep in our admiration. One, the bell-wether, has taken a certain course by chance, and the rest follow. The success which is admired in the world is usually admired only in this gregarious way ; that is to say, if you come to close quarters with any individual, you 1 6 Success and Failure find that he does not admire it at all — he only echoes the hollow cry which chances to be in the air. I will test this remark by an example or two. There is Petronius ) whom everybody knows, or rather, I should say, whom everybody knows of, for very few of us have the distinction of his personal acquaintance He is the leader of fashion and the arbiter elegantice . What he wears, or does, or says, settles the mode, and every one is best pleased who can succeed in imitating him. His tailor is able to charge twenty per cent, extra to all customers. A haberdasher with a new cravat would not dream of putting it on the market without his approval, and with his approval further advertisement is needless. His con- versation is as faultless as his clothes, and impresses one in the same manner — as something recently acquired and put on. He is a fine raconteur ) and every spicy story comes into his capa- The Admiration of Success 17 cious brain and issues from it improved. It would be absolutely impossible to have a dinner party without him, and the strain of sustained elegance and entertainment has broken his constitu- tion. But if his frame is shrunken, his clothes are still perfection. Not to have a complete change of linen every day, and twice most days of the week, would give him a sense of nausea. He can tolerate your filthiest debauchee in town, provided he is clean ! There are some vices which are not fashionable : these he condemns with a dignified and pensive moral earnestness. But as the majority of vices, and the worst, are fashionable, he has no condemnation for them at all. He is considered a charming companion — though I never heard of any one who would take a journey with him ; and no woman has ever brought herself to be the com- panion of his life. Every one, as I say, knows him, quotes him, admires him, courts him, invites him ; and you B 1 8 Success and Failure would suppose that when he fails, there will be countless multitudes to receive him into their habitations. There is no one about whom society is so unani- mous ; for he never makes a faux pas , loses his temper, or is guilty of any breach in propriety. His religion is etiquette ; his morals are the practice of good society ; his intellect is the exact counterpart of the tone ; as a resplendent figurehead he represents the circle in which he moves, and I need not tell you that that circle is the best. But now I put it to you, candidly, do you admire him ? You have implied that you do a thousand times. You have tried to appear like him, and you have been fluttered with excitement when you thought that he had noticed you. But going into your heart, you can easily recognise that the moments of your admiration and attempted imita- tion were your bad, nay your worst, moments, and that in all the wholesome moods, so far from admiring, you The Admiration of Success 19 heartily despise him. And now get into the heart of those who form the society of which he is the admired ornament, into the heart, into the secret chamber of honest verdicts, and you find that not one of these flatterers really admires him. If you prosecute your inquiries you reach the conclusion that there is only one person in all the world who thoroughly admires Pet- ronius, and that is Petronius himself. And I have a suspicion that if ever he went into his own heart — an unlikely contingency I own — he would find that his own admiration is as unreal as the admiration of the rest. Or I daresay you know Faustina ) for indeed she deserves to be known. I have frequently heard her praised as the model mother, and I have seen young married women sitting at her feet, as it were, to learn her methods, and shaping their souls to her pattern, as their bodies are shaped to the pattern in the corset-maker’s front 20 Success and Failure window. And I am free to admit that I have often myself, in regarding Faus- tina, felt a wonder which is hard to dis- tinguish from admiration. Her sons, as she would confess to you, she left to her husband — u *For what, my dear, could a delicate and nervous woman like me do with strapping boys ? ” — and they have all gone to the bad. In talking of them she always commands some beautiful maternal tears, and by one of her pathetic and religious ejacu- lations she has often sent away a bevy of callers dissolved in pity, if not in tears. But with her daughters, whom she took in hand from the beginning, she has achieved an acknowledged success. In each case she very early selected whom the girl should marry, and by the intervention of Providence, as she says to her clergyman, her design has always been realised. Hardly less admnable is the selection she made, or the avowed motive which determined the selection. Her eldest daughter was The Admiration of Success 2 1 destined to cheer the solitude and old age of a widower, whose declining years promised to be melancholy indeed, agitated by the constant efforts of de- signing relatives to secure his enormous wealth. Her second daughter was married to a cousin, for family reasons. “ It would be impious,” as Faustina said, “ to let that estate in Hampshire pass out of the family by an alien mar- riage, and my precious Lavinia is quite aware of the impiety.” That the grand- children in this branch of the family are mentally diseased is “one of those mysteries which shake one’s faith in a benevolent Deity.” Her third daughter — she has but three — “ God bless the dear, dutiful girls, who never gave me a moment’s anxiety in my life ! ” — was very near to giving her trouble, for she fell in love with a young enthusiast, “ one of those men — don’t you know — who think that they have a commis- sion from the Almighty to put the world right.” But such was the power 22 Success and Failure of early training — “ Train up a child in the way he should go, I always say, and often turn to that lovely passage in Ecclesiastes ” — that she immediately followed the maternal guidance, which had selected the curate of the parish. “ I always think,” said Faustina to her friends, “ that a young clergyman, of all men, needs a good wife, and I feel it doing the work of the Church, yes, in my humble way, doing the work of our Lord, to prepare my darling child to be the partner of such a man.” And besides, there was this further element of benevolence, that the curate, who was an ascetic, was the son of the wealthiest baronet in England, who had cut him off with a shilling for becoming a priest, and only promised to restore him to his favour if he married like a sensible man, and prepared himself to take up the management of the estate. This signal and unselfish success of Faustina’s has filled the mouths of her friends with praises — or with envy — The Admiration of Success 23 and no one is more admired in the county. Yet do you admire her ? Her self-delusion, her unconscious hy- pocrisies, the brood of trouble she has hatched for her sons and daughters ; the inevitable awaking, the. crushing judgment that must follow, fill me with dismay. And I am sure you share my sentiments. You have no admiration for this universally admired woman. But I will tell you, if you will let me,, whom you really admire, though you never perhaps heard or expressed any admiration for him before. Read Sir William Hunter’s little book called The Old Missionary. That is a tale of self- denial and compassion, of patience,, benignity, and courtesy. There is one who eludes the notice of the world, who lives and dies in unobtrusive service, who even in his death is not named or remembered. Now, that man you really admire. This man after whom the world does not go, is he after whom your own heart goes, 24 Success and Failure aye, and every one of the hearts that in their degradation and delusion make up that huge falsity “ the world.” You must get the little book and read it ; and if I am wrong I shall beg you to let me know. It would be curious indeed to meet a person who in his heart did not admire The Old Mis- sionary . And once more I will tell you whom you admire. He is one whom men have always affected to despise, and in their irritation have sought to slay ; but their apparent hatred has been the result of a secret admiration which they could not suppress, an admiration which threatened to drive them into a breach of all their habits and precon- ceptions. I venture to say that in your heart you admire Jesus Christ. You may turn away from Him and try to forget Him, but He haunts you as a vision of beauty. You may argue against Him and try to disprove Him, but if your logic seems to you trium- The Admiration of Success 25 phant there is none who regrets it so much as yourself. You may take His name in vain, and even sneer at Him ; but what impels you to do so is only the fierce delight of blasphemy. It is because all that is good in you admires Him, that all that is bad in you thrills with the rapture of reviling Him. Yes, misguided as are the conven- tional judgments of men, pathetically constant are their inner standards and ideals. These feverish natures which hunt their low successes over half a world ; which strive and cry, and laugh and exult, and flourish their mean achievements in the eye of heaven ; these men dowered with millions ; these women who lead society ; these bespangled stars of the stage ; these successful operators, speculators, de- predators ; could you follow them be- hind the scenes, into the secret cham- bers where their hearts weep alone, and their eyes look into the mirror of truth 26 Success and Failure and see themselves, what would you find ? Why, sick and weary and dis- illusionised, their eyes seek just what in the mirror they do not see. They seek some spirit, simple and undefiled, some concourse where men love and do not strive, some crown which does not weigh like gold upon their brow. They seek that face, the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief, the homeless Man of Sorrows, who alone possesses a home of many mansions. It is, after all, this Man whom they admire and desire. Christ, O Christ, disown me not, reject me not, remem- ber even me in Thy kingdom. In the excited ways of men and the distracted currents of the world, they have pro- fessed to admire a thousand persons, a thousand things, which were Anti- christ. Deep down in their hearts they have admired only Christ. And thus I carry all hearts with me when I say that what I admire is the success of one who has set his desire The Admiration of Success 27 on the ways of God, and, undeterred by false visions or deluding sounds, has striven towards Him to the end, and passed out of our sight still striv- ing. OF SUCCESS WHICH IS FAILURE We have seen what we mean by success. And a few questions have already been asked which reveal the shams that often pass by that name in the world. But you must have a re- lentless search-light, and you must track down the phantoms if you are going to be proof against the illusions which are constantly palming them- selves off as successes. The search-light by which success has to be tested is briefly this. What effect has it had upon the soul? Now, I do not propose to depreciate the enterprise and energy by which the wealth of the community is enlarged, Of Success which is Failure 29 its knowledge extended, and its prac- tical conveniences increased. If the socialist ideal of the world is correct, then society is to be considered suc- cessful in proportion as all men have three square meals a day, enjoy the use of the railway and the telegraph, have sufficient upholstery, and secure adequate leisure for amusement accord- ing to their tastes. Towards these fine materialistic ideals the inventors, students, workers are all contributing ; and as such a possibility comes appre- ciably nearer, they may be considered successful, from that particular point of view. Do not let me, therefore, be understood as under-rating their several services to society, when I still venture to press the question, “ What effect has their successful labour had on their own souls ? ” For those, few or many, who believe in the soul, and contemplate it in the light of eternity, this is the primary considera- tion. Just as I should not congratu- 30 Success and Failure late you on your success if you had used a priceless canvas of Raphael to make the grate draw, and had suc- ceeded in making a good fire but ruined the picture, so a human soul, employed to amass wealth, make phy- sical discoveries, or extend the boun- daries of human knowledge, is ill- employed, and essentially unsuccessful, if in the process it is destroyed or ruined. Now, here is an observation which it is comparatively easy to verify. An immense proportion of what is called success in life, commercial success, professional success, social success, is secured by the destruction or injury of that fine instrument, the soul. If one has kept an open eye on .men, he will be prepared to suspect “ success- ful ” men, and to look for charm and interest, and especially for truth and guidance, from those who have been less successful, or perhaps not success- ful at all. Here it is.~vdi£ficult to speak Of Success which is Failure 31 without plunging into the errors of the satirist. But I will try to be explicit, because I know that if I would engage the reader’s admiration for the true success, I must inspire him with a suspicion, and even positive dislike, of the successes of the world. I hesitate to speak of my acquaintance in such a connection ; but I take refuge in the reflection that successful people are far too busy to read my words. Now t , there is Negotius , one of the most successful merchants in a nor- thern town, whose suburban house as well deserves a visit as some of the famous galleries and villas in Rome. Whatever he touches has turned to gold. Ever since his first attempts in business he has never had a real reverse. His nearest approach to a disaster was that once, when his fortune stood at one million, he lost by an unlucky venture a hundred thousand, which went near to breaking his heart, and actually turned his hair 32 Success and Failure grey. It is a pretty sight to see him scan the columns of the money market in the morning paper, which are as in- teresting to him as the pages of the Bible. A pretty sight, for he changes colour with every glance ; but his in- vestments are so well placed that he usually turns to his breakfast with a look of elation and a good appetite. From breakfast to dinner he is in his office, and works, as he says, like a slave. Once there was an object for this hard labour, when he had a young wife and family to . support ; but long after the object has been attained, the labour continues, and he has forgotten that, while with a worthy object such toil is laudable, without such an object, to work like a slave is to be a slave, as indeed he is. The rest of his day requires no description, for in the strict sense of the word it has no conscious existence. His Sunday is like the rest of the week, except that on that day his mind only is in his Of Success which is Failure 33 business, while his body is in the family pew, or reclining after dinner with a handkerchief over his head. I ought to say that his habits are regular, and he is a very moderate eater and drinker, because, as he says, excess is bad for business. His only excess is business itself. I believe he would be generous with his money, but he has not time to interest himself in good works, or even to hear the pleas of those who are engaged in them. Oddly enough, he is a Christian, and a very orthodox believer ; but if he is awkwardly reminded of Dives and Lazarus, or “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth,” he quickly retreats to the fine apostolic precept, “ Not slothful in business,” and he settled the question of the Revised Bible, agreeing at once with all Dean Bur- gon’s attacks on the revisers, when he was told that his favourite text was -altered. Now Negotius is so widely and properly respected that it seems 34 Success and Failure presumptuous to say that he and his life are a failure. Nor should I have ventured to make so rude an assertion, but that I chanced to light on some letters which were written by a friend of his in early manhood. And I con- fess the contrast between what he promised to be and what he has become, filled me with dismay. In those young days he was an ardent teacher of a boys’ class, and spent early hours in studying all kinds of books for the lessons, and late evenings in brotherly intercourse with the lads. He had a tender heart, and frequently gave away half his small salary to needy friends. He was the light of the eyes of his parents who were good, industrious people, unfortunately be- lieving in “ success,” but fortunately not attaining it. I imagine that little by little as busi- ness claims thickened, the work for others was surrendered, and the in- terest in others waned. As the mind Of Success which is Failure 35 became engrossed in the absorbing occupation, the sympathies and affec- tions cooled ; certainly few men now are less loved by wife and children than Negotius. And estimating what a falling-off was there, and quantum mutatus ab illo ) I can only say that this is a failure. As a merchant-prince, as a pride of his country, as one of the solid foundations of our commercial prosperity, he is a success. But as a soul he is a failure. It is a soul which has gradually dried up, until all its juices are gone ; in their place is the thin, fierce lust of accumulation. If it seems hard to describe Negotius as a failure, it seems the most contu- melious rashness to say the same of my friend Causidicus . But I ask the kind and candid reader to judge. Causidicus has certainly made his way in the world, and, to do him justice, he will not resent my mentioning that he is the son of what are called in edifying books, “ poor but pious ” parents. He 36 Success and Failure was, I fancy, from the first keenly conscious of that nice distinction. “ Poor, but pious — yes, how un- favourable to piety is poverty ! Let me strive to increase the chances of my piety by avoiding the possibilities of poverty. How Causidicus made his way to the Bar, and then made his way at the Bar, is a magnificent record of splendid success, achieved in the face of overwhelming obstacles. How busy he is I cannot possibly describe. He always reminds me of Southey, and of the question which the Quaker lady addressed to him. Southey had related in his enthusiastic way that he studied Portuguese grammar while he was shaving ; read Spanish for an hour before breakfast ; after breakfast, wrote or studied till dinner, and filled all his day with writing, reading, eat- ing, talking, taking exercise, or sleep- ing. “And, friend, when dost thee think ? ” inquired the quiet voice. Causidicus is alw r ays in consultation, Of Success which is Failure 37 or in court, or working up his briefs at home, or talking about the courts and the judges and the “ musty purlieus of the law." He is the leader of his division of the Bar ; and he deserves to be ; for he has sacrificed his soul to it. He is law ; he is nothing else. When he kneels down to say his prayers he gabbles over a few pre- cedents. When he used to go to church he disturbed his neighbours by sotto voce addresses to the jury. And I have heard that when he proposed to a lady, and she demurred or put a question, he referred her abstractedly to Blackstone, where indeed his heart was. Every one says that Causidicus will be a judge, and his portrait will be painted in scarlet and ermine. And yet I, who retain some affection for the man, cannot help regarding him as a failure. He is jejune. And, Heaven forgive me for saying so, he is a bore. A talk with him — if ever he does talk — means five minutes of witty anecdote 38 Success and Failure and reminiscences of the court, and then interminable cases, irrelevant, dead, ashy, the very fruit of the Dead Sea. Alas for these successful men, whose lives are unchequered with failure and trouble ! Is not God, as Jeremy Taylor put it, “severely kind to them”? Might they not pray for some of the chastisements which a Father does not spare His children ? Prosperity — is it not frequently consistent with in- tense worldliness, selfishness, hardness of heart ? Is not even disaster wel- come which teaches self-sacrifice, com- passion, charity, religion ? And, to be plain, do the grander qualities of human nature, the scorn of pleasure, the passion for truth, the thirst of knowledge, the philanthropy of service, the ardour of religion ever bring men, in their lifetime, what is called success? I conclude that the last thing we should desire for those whom we love is rapid and startling success. “ De- liver us from premature success,” Of Success which is Failure 39 should be our prayer; “let it come, if at all, as our nature is strengthened to receive it and secured against its dangerous influences. ” It is always perilous, it is often misleading. A sudden gleam of its false lights may send us along a fatal course and land us in the quagmire. When Charles XII. of Sweden set out on his au- dacious career he gained a brilliant victory over the Russians at Narva ; that was, strictly speaking, his ruin ; it launched him upon a series of brilliant but ineffectual victories, which brought no good to Europe and infinite harm to Sweden. From her great king’s “ successes ” Sweden has never yet recovered, and now perhaps never can. Happy king and happy country if her forces had been routed at the beginning and her king had been sent home to govern and develop his country! The world teems with ruined lives which were started on their path of ruin by a delusive Narva 1 “ From 40 Success and Failure our victories, good Lord, deliver us ; from our misleading successes and alluring accidents of luck, good Lord, deliver us; from the beckoning fingers, and the fancied plaudits, and the visionary crowns, good Lord, deliver us ! ” And magnis componere parva — have I not seen an artist ruined by a first picture injuriously accepted in the Academy ? Oh, woful fortune ! The Academicians were sleepy, or they were misled by a name, or a vacant place wanted filling and the frame chanced to fit. And our unhappy friend was determined in his course as an artist, seeing already the magic letters R.A. dancing after his name. Started on that perilous career, he paints no more Academy pictures, but paints and paints his poor soul out on canvases that no mortal eye can desire, the sport and dupe of fortune. “ Ruined by success ” is the epitaph to place upon his hapless tomb. Could not the kind wind of adversity have chilled the Of Success which is Failure 41 fatal output and saved the man by nipping the artist in the bud ? Far better was that overthrow of Edyrn, son of Nudd, traitor and op- pressor, whom, after a brief and dangerous success, Geraint the Prince overthrew. Overthrown, he began to live : — And rising up, he rode to Arthur’s court, And there the Queen forgave him easily ; And, being young, he changed and came to loathe His crime of traitor, slowly drew himself Bright from his old dark life, and fell at last In the great battle fighting for the King. Hitherto I have spoken only of the success which is failure in the inci- dental sense ; the strain of succeeding in a secondary direction diverts the energies of the soul from the direction which is essential. But a far more sorrowful contingency falls to be con- sidered ; there is a department of failure produced by success which is tragical and, properly speaking, the tragedy of our day and generation. 42 Success and Failure Mournful indeed it is when the soul, as the penalty of prosperity, grows jejune or withers away ; more mourn- ful is it when the soul, inflated and confident, grows wanton and proud ; but most mournful of all is it when success is purchased at the cost of the virtue, the honour, the chastity, with- out which the soul of a man becomes lower than the soul of a beast. It is a department of fact which no realist has perhaps ventured yet to depict, for there is a vague and creeping horror about it. A pen that can move easily in the description of dipsomania or ero- tomania, or others of the gross de- liriums of the modern spirit, may shrink back in dismay from this subtler form of the soul’s suicide. But as the prophet says : “ Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negli- gently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.” The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, must cut without sparing Of Success which is Failure 43 into this deadliest tumour of the soul. Let the preacher in his moment of insight and inspiration wield the sword ; many of his hearers are the very people who are in danger of the unpardonable sin. But many of these imperilled souls are hearers of no preachers. Let some poet or novelist who can com- mand the unpreached-to masses attempt the theme. For here is the fact. What is called success in business, in literature, in society, in politics and public life, and, horrible as it is to say it, what is called success in the Church and in religious work, is sometimes purchased by a subtle and sinister compromise with evil, as definite as the compact by which a mediaeval witch purchased the power of the moment by the sale of the immortal soul. The ledger which is kept in heaven is never opened or read on earth. But if we are not the sport of dreams, every business house has its ledger in 44 Success and Failure heaven, by no means corresponding to the decent book which, annually audited, presents an irreproachable balance in case of a judicial investigation. Let me take up my parable for a moment. Here is a great furniture firm, which fills half a street with shop added to shop, and covers a city with its vans, while its principals rise to distinction in society and in public life. In the flood-tide of its success all the lesser firms and businesses are submerged and absorbed. And this is the founda- tion on which its fortunes rest. A suite of chairs might be needed, and the manager would suggest to his journeymen that, following a certain pattern, they should send in their samples in competition for the order. The journeymen — a dozen of them — all equally good, send in their samples, which together make the suite. u Well,” says the manager to each man singly, “ this will not do, but that you may not be a loser I give you the price of Of Success which is Failure 45 your material and a trifle for your labour.” And then the suite is sold for a long and fair price. How in- genious ! How smart ! Success at- tends such preternatural and incon- ceivable ingenuity. Yes, but the man ! the soul 1 Is it in vain written, “ Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl . . . the hire of the labourers which is of you kept back by fraud crieth out ” ? * It must be considered that many pros- perous firms, many suburban residences and many large country estates, are reared upon such foundations. And inasmuch as the eternal laws remain, and yet these men grow fat and pros- perous and pass down to an honoured grave, there can be little doubt that behind the gates of death flashes the vindictive sword, and the huge success is marked in heaven with the ruin of hell. “ Therefore mine heart soundeth for Moab like pipes, and mine heart soundeth like pipes for the main of * James v. 1-4. 46 Success and Failure Kir-heres ; therefore the abundance that he hath gotten is perished.” * But again let me take up my parable. Here is your man of letters, appointed the seer and the preacher of an age which neglects the pulpit. He is fitly crowned with the bays, and his voice sings out over the seas in his “ fiftieth thousand in one fortnight,” and the rest. Is not this success ? It is all what the Americans call “ pheno- menal ; ” yes, phenomenal in the sense not meant by our cousins, viz., mere appearance, vanishing as the baseless fabric of a dream. For observe, our author knows, as we all do, that the courses of our poor humanity can be easily set on fire by the insinuations of vice. He knows, as we all do, that the prurience of the young makes the innuendo irresistible, and the elders will revel in the task of reading, “just to see if the book is suitable for the young to read ! ” All this he knows— * Jer. xlviii. 36. Of Success which is Failure 47 for we know it. And he, best of all of us, understands how, the poisonous flood once risen on the soul, there is no staunching of its fountains, or at least no cleansing of its stains. Con- scious of the spell which he can weave by the subtlety of words, and the keen touch of his finger on all the keys of feeling, he is aware how easily unstable minds may be overcome, and ruin effected by the silent page. And knowing this, he sells his soul to the devil, and writes his novel or his poem with the poison drenching its lines. He has a defence for what he is doing, and he can beat down his prudish critics with the clamorous approval of his victims. But what is this success ? Who uttered the words to the effect that for a man who casts a stumbling block in the way of one of the little ones it were better that a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea ? Success in society ! It is as often 48 Success and Failure as not purchased by the sacrifice of principle, conscious and deliberate. As society is at present managed, with its indiscriminate admiration of wealth, and its haughty indifference to simple human merit, its way of treating philanthropies as the craze of a season, and religion as the decision of a fashion, hardly any one who values his soul can be a success in it. He may move in it as a protester, a militant dissenter ; but as an unques- tioning conformist he can only move in it by the sacrifice of principle. And at the gates of society lie the slain principles which have been sacrificed, like the heads of Ahab’s sons at the gate of Jezreel. Let us devoutly thank God that society is exclusive and limited. “ Ten thousand ” are enough as its martyrs. As to public life and success in it, this much must be said : Party passion is agreed that all opponents are chargeable with base motives and Of Success which is Failure 49 unscrupulous tactics, and thus by a general though contradictory assent, all successful politicians are moral failures. But even observers who are not partisans allow’ that when ambition is once in the saddle, it shrinks from the use of no spur how- ever evil. And further, in England, the least corrupt country it is said in the world, one may see that, where pecuniary interests are concerned, conscience goes by the board. Wars are made, and individuals profit by them while the nations groan. The poisonous drink traffic devastates the land, while those who live by it grow rich and honourable. Unsanitary buildings stand under the aegis of councillors and vestrymen. By the very nature of the case the people responsible for these things are suc- cessful people, people who have ob- tained the reins of power, and can control Parliaments and Councils. Their success is, depend upon it, r> 50 Success and Failure counted in heaven as irretrievable failure, and instead of standing, as they seem to do, upon the steps of honour, their feet tread the gulf of bottomless perdition. Of those religious “ successes ” which are purchased by gross worldly means, by the intrigue of Curias, the lies of Jesuitism, the subserviency, the crushing of conscience, the conceal- ment of conviction, the popular clap- trap, the hollow flattery, which have made Churches and Churchmen hateful to their fellow men, I have no heart to speak. Dante placed his Popes in the depths of hell with rare poetic instinct. The Lord Himself reserved all His maledictions for the hypocrites. No pontifical robes or broad phylacteries ; no tiara, or biretta, or doctors cap, can screen these doomed bodies or cover these guilty heads. Their success is their ruin. Elected priests and high- priests of Mammon may seal their own ate as the outcasts of God. OF FAILURE WHICH IS SUCCESS If we have been led to look with scrutiny and even suspicion on what is generally considered success, we have a compensation ; we may look with some hope on what is generally considered failure. We may learn that lesson of human life — one of its best lessons, because it is one that runs over into another world : How far high failure Transcends the bounds of low success. Of this beautiful lesson I have not chanced to light on any more apposite illustration than the “ Letters of James Smetham.”* It is one of those books * Published by Macmillan in 1892. 52 Success and Failure which, once read, stand on the shelf with a monitory finger, and a sugges- tion of the heavens. Smetham was an artist, and he was a failure in the sense that few know or care about his pictures. The qualities which roused Ruskin’s admiration at the beginning were not able to conquer an indifferent public. At any rate his memory will be green not as that of a successful artist, but as that of an artist who was a failure. On the other hand, Smetham is one of the few men of this century whose life strikes me as a success. It was lived on such a plane and in such a spirit that professional prosperity was always secondary. His eye was fixed on a far distance, and his course was shaped for the goal. That the necessary curve of the road carried him out of the region where popular recognition and approval wjere possible did not affect him. He had higher things in view ; bent on the Celestial City, he could not stay to O f F allure which is Success 53 make a reputation in Vanity Fair. He never repented of his choice even in that dark valley of the shadow which, for him, occurred just before he crossed the river. No one took much notice of him at the time ; but he was writing these letters, and whatever other pic- ture he drew or did not draw, he has left us the full-length illustration of the failure which is success. I shall beg the reader to spend a few moments with me in the sweet atmosphere of Smetham’s life ; for this will probably carry home my meaning better than a laboured argument. His wife writes : — “The question presented itself to him, How shall I order and direct my life ; what shall I aim at ? He felt that to give himself up to the pursuit of painting, simply and entirely, would not meet the need of his nature. Both his moral and his mental imper- fection demanded a continuous and extended culture, and he began to ( formulate a plan of life, beginning in 54 Success and Failure a course of long disciplinary study, and intended to combine art, literature, and the religious life all in one. He carried this out. ‘ It took me twenty- five years/ he said ; ‘ but my purpose was to paint concurrently with it. So^ with rare exceptions, I painted some hours every day, and practised every requisite of art, drew every bone and muscle over and over again, sketched books on books full of every phase of nature, studied perspective thoroughly, studied the antique, went through as full a course as any student in the Academy; but alone.’ Thus he with- drew from the normal lines of the art career, and struck out a path for him- self.” Is not that the one condition of all high success ? Withdraw, be not conformed ; strike out a line for thy- self ; be thyself ! This was the secret of his professional failure ; this was the secret of his real success. Thus at the age of forty — that critical age when one is fairly embarked, and to Of Failure which is Success 55 put back to port and start again is no longer possible — when the prow is well out to sea and forging ahead to the unknown shore — he writes (1861), “ I think I am a little sympathised with as a painter who has not got on somehow, whereas in my own secret heart I am looking on myself as one who has got on, and got to his goal ; as one who, if he had chosen, could have had a competence, if not a fortune, by this time ; but who has got something a thousand times better, more real, more inward, less in the power of others, less variable, more immutable, more eternal, and as one who can afford a sly wink to those who know him, which wink signifies that he is not so sure that he is not going to do some- thing comfortable in an outward and artistic sense after all. But be this as it may, his feet are on a rock ; his goings so far established with a new song in his mouth and joy on his head — and 4s. 6d. this moment in his 56 Success and Failure pocket, besides some postage stamps.” Is not that “ high failure transcending the bounds of low success ” ? Twelve years after, there was a private exhibition of his pictures, and from a noble lord and lady he received warm sympathy and sold to them his study for the “ Hymn of the Last Supper.” That was the acme of his outward success ; so much attention, and no more, the busy world gave to him and his ways. The writer of his memoir ends it with a remark, and a pertinent question. It mattered not to him “ whether his audience was likely' to be a large or a small one ; only that his message should be faithfully delivered and his life-purpose, as such, should be fully accomplished. What- ever the measure of external success awarded to it, can any life with such an ideal as this before it be counted a failure ? ” Lest, reader, you should doubt, having your eye on diplomas and the Of Failure which is Success 57 letters R.A., and the influx of gold as the reward of effort, I must trouble you to listen to these scraps from Smetham’s own account of himself. “ Life seems tome to be wonderfully blessed and perfect, considering its necessary incompleteness until the restoration of all things. All things fall so well and suitably into their places that there is no want, no vexa- tious craving for something we have not got. I could scarcely wish to realise more on earth of an earthly kind. All I wish is to increase the knowledge of God, and the sense of repose in Him as King and Father, through His Son the Mediator, by whom we receive all satisfying things.” This is how he writes of that most wearing of human experiences, a sleep- less night. “ I have found many pleasant and thankful trains of thought filling my mind in the darkness, calm and equable impressions of truth, and a steady, peaceful frame of feeling, a 58 Success and Failure sense of God and of salvation, a resting by faith on His word and will, a thousand pleasant memories of His grace, a persuasion of being where He would have me be, and on the whole, of doing what He would have me do — a life going in the right track, enclosed within the bounds of the Church.” Smetham was a devout and active Methodist all his days, “and seeking its good and the good of the world.” Or thus, when things are outwardly favourable: “ A tender April morning opening the pores of the nature and filling it with all the fulness of the spring. All is easy and bland. Reli- giously, no state is without its materials of fear. The service on Friday was so refreshing and soothing ; yesterday so fine in the open air all day long ; to-day is so pleasant and restful, that Mephistopheles is disposed to say : ‘ Upon my word, this is very pleasant work. I thought religion was a sort of being crucified. It is time to turn Of Failure which is Success 59 pious myself? Still we ought not to be cheated out of our comfort because Mephistopheles exhorts us to make ourselves long-faced. To keep up the sacrifice of Praise and Prayer among the violet banks 1 stealing and giving odours/ while the spell of beauty lies on you, and the soft west wind fills you with a tingling sense of immunity, requires fresh baptisms of grace ; and to triumph in Christ over joy and prosperity is as difficult as over grief and pain?’ How sweet the nature is ! When fifty has come, and with it small success, he is yet a boy, full of eager desire to paint among the labour- ing classes and for the middle classes what they really want. “ I’m their man, if I can suit as to work. I’ve no qualms as to being an ill-used professor of better things, for the joy of life has long risen above this sort of nonsense.” Yes, above most kinds of nonsense, I should say, when an artist can write in this way : “ In the family, read that 60 Success and Failure part of the Sermon on the Mount which forbids care, and went to work humbly and thankfully, glad to be able by ever so much labour to paint a picture worth a few pounds. Another gospel might have made me look on myself as a neglected genius, and I might have sworn bitterly all day, or dropped work in disgust and gone off loafing to a studio to infect some other genius with pride and discontent. But ‘ bless the Lord, O my soul ! ’ No, quite the reverse. How carefully I painted my market-woman, with her hens in a basket, thankful not to be a Leicester stockinger at 4s. 6d. a week, and when a tired feeling came over me, a flush of divine philosophy, 4 not harsh nor crabbed as dull fools suppose, but musical as is Apollo’s lute,’ sent me on spinning again, running and not weary, walking and not faint.” And this : “To learn the art of protracted patience, to learn to work well for its own sake, to learn to be contented with very I Of Failure which is Success 61 moderate remuneration, and not to be betrayed into excited hopes, or greedy desires, this is better than thousands of gold and silver. ” Thus the joyous spring may pass — through no exuberant summer — to a mellow autumn. “ One effect of the autumnal years of life is the Indian summer of thought and study. You see through what used to excite and run away with you. Only, to have the soft, tranquil, golden light lying level over all, there must be the right world. Autumn is not a manu- facture ; it is a season, and depends on the operation of the orbs, on a vast axis, on an enormous orbit, on the silent signs of heaven. It filters down into every cranny impartially, gilding our lane, but it comes in its essence from afar, bound by gold chains about the feet of God. So is life. When a man is past fifty, if he has been a real student, he must feel that he has had enough, more than he can ever use. He sees that things come round and 62 Success and Failure meet again. The youth who has just passed his B.A. is far cleverer than he, and many a thing that he was smart about at twenty-five lies in the mud, like .Stephenson’s old steam-engine, rusting. A new generation is crowing all round him, not wise, but thinking itself so because it spells cock-a-doodle- doo with a K (Kokadoodledoo), yet he is not disgusted nor cynical, for know- ledge and wisdom excel folly, as light excelleth darkness.” And so life ends in a broad calm and a promise of to-morrow : “ Each time the galley sails up the Cydnus I am obliged to ask my heart the old set of questions, and my heart replies with no hesitation as of yore : I would not have it other- wise. If all were to do over again, I I would do just the same. Only I say this with more rest and gladness than ever, with more entire contentment, with deeper thankfulness to God and to man.” But, you will say, the man was a Of F allure which is Success 63 Christian, and had Christ — and there- fore his failure was in the larger sense a success ! Precisely, I should reply ; that is the reason. From the elevation of that high failure, which looks down upon the mounds and burrows of low success, he could survey with genuine compas- sion those who filled some space in the world. He can say of De Quincey : “ What a queer, mystic, sublime, in- scrutable, fascinating old mummy he is ! Throw your mind back to the days when, fifty years or more ago, he wandered in London streets, and what he says of himself in the ‘ Confessions ’ then, and fancy that he has lasted on till now, and is winking and blinking yet, quoting Latin passages out of Father Maremme, a learned Jesuit, 1 page 1461/ which he Head thirty years ago/ and backing up the quota- tion with another from Lactantius, and another from Mimnermus, and finishing by a queer tale about a Kalmuck 64 Success and Failure Tartar and an Emperor of China. Now, the fact is, that man has wasted his life ; and one can only, in one’s soul, use him as Samson used the honey out of the dead lion, 4 Out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ Somehow there is a divine instinct within us which decides that pre- eminence — using the term in its final sense — shall not be given to mere intellectual strength and prowess.” Yes, and on his own successful con- temporary, Sir David Wilkie, he has something to say, is indeed very eager to say it : “ What did his success cost him ? He did nothing but paint. What he read was only by the way, and though his mind was piercing in its energy of investigation in his own line, yet he was no better than the average small tradesman out of it. Witness his lectures and the small style of his observations generally. Witness his small love for the great. 1 To sit at their tables, mon, it is grand.’ Of Failure which is Success 65 Weak and watery to a degree outside his art, his life was commonplace except within it. He reaped as he sowed, and we reap the benefit of his sowing also, with untold delight. No blame therefore to Wilkie, and great gain to us.” No blame to Wilkie, no; but no great praise either, and certainly no envy. “ Perhaps it was no part of Wilkie’s biography to speak of his soul’s history, nor was Allan Cunning- ham the man who could have done it. I see no evidence in his writings that in his youth or manhood his soul was ever awakened within him. There is nothing to distinguish him from the good-natured, moral, canny Scotchman of the world. No doubts as to his course seem to have retarded him for an hour. He leaped into fame at a bound at the early age of twenty-one. He was joined at once to polite society ; to the society in fact of the great ; and there he dwelt all his years on the earth, respected and respectable. His E 66 Success and Failure religion as far as it appears might be summed up in the concluding sentence of a sermon heard by my friend Mr. Chubb from the lips of Sydney Smith, whose preaching, by the way, Wilkie much admired. ‘ Finally, my brethren, if you wish to die respected, be respectable/ Beyond this depth I see nothing deeper in Wilkie’s soul. I seem to hear an echo, faint and watery as in a cold old mossy well, ‘ Well ! what more would you have ? ’ It is this * What more ? 1 that is the key, the cross, the crown of my whole history from 1843 t0 present time, 1871.” Conceive a man who gives no evidence in his writings that “ his soul has ever been awakened within him.” Can he be regarded as a success ? Is it any satisfaction to be a court painter, and to be universally admired, and to be immortalised even in your burial by the brush of Turner, if the soul has never been awakened Of F ailure which is Success 67 within you ? What does it profit the body that is dropped there, off Gibraltar, into “that vast and wan- dering wave ” to be honoured and remembered, if the soul has never been awakened within it ? Smetham therefore, without one touch of envy, but with large compassion, takes his own meed, which is little, and sorrows that another’s meed of praise should mean the abortion of a soul, keenly aware, How much high failure Transcends the bounds of low success. But there is something more to be said than this. Smetham was a failure because he was bent on realising him- self, not as an artist merely but as a man and a Christian. He sets his sails for the far haven, knowing that he would not catch the wind of the popular approval. But there are other lives which aim at the lower ends and are only redeemed by their failure to attain them. Many men owe their souls, 68 Success and Failure and their salvation, to the mischance which shatters their hopes, and when they intend Tarshish, lands them, even through a whale’s gorge, on the shore of their homeland. I suppose it is one of Browning’s best lessons, to teach an age striving after success of the lower kinds this truth. And is it not a rare glimpse into that poet’s high wisdom, that he taught the lesson most distinctly in his earliest poems ? Paracelsus was written when he was himself little more than a boy ; it is the interpretation of the young man’s thoughts of life, the aims he is setting before himself. Assuredly every young man, and in these days every young woman too, should master Paracelsus. You are not equipped for life until you know this precept of the way. It is difficult, you say, to follow or under- stand. Unhappily it is ! But not, I think, if you get the clue. And though I will not presume to be the interpreter, I will set down here the lesson of the Of Failure which is Success 69 poem for those who, from chance or misfortune, are constitutionally unable to read it for themselves. They who love poetry will read it, because this is poetry of the highest order at white heat. But the lovers of poetry are few, while those who need this gem of teaching are many — are all. Paracelsus the Latin word for Ab Hohenheim, the little town in Switzerland from which he came, “ He of the high home ” as it were — Philippus Aureolus Theophras- tus Bombastus ab Hohenheim, was the full name — set out in the heyday of youth, which fell for him in the brilliant opening of the sixteenth century, the heart of the Renaissance, the eve of the Reformation, with a lofty purpose to know and to teach. In his glowing harangues to his friends Festus and Michal he describes his aim, and bears down all opposition which maturer wisdom and the humility of love could suggest. He means, exalted above and separated from his kind, to press, 70 Success and Failure . not by study or mastering the results of the past, but by the bold intuition of genius, to the secret of knowledge, and to benefit mankind, like a god from above, without demanding any- thing from them but recognition. It is an aim partly noble — man would always be as God. But pride is at the core. Leaving his gentle friends behind, as man and wife, to love him, to believe in him and to pray for him, with a lofty sense of superiority he starts on his quest. A certain dazzling success appears to justify his confi- dence. Admired as a philosopher, he gathers crowds of students to his lec- tures. The discoverer of the narcotic effects of laudanum, he is able to effect some remarkable cures. His name begins to ring through Europe. Festus, full of admiration, seeks him out to rejoice with him. But the great man is well aware that, with certain elements of real knowledge intermixed, his science is in the main a quackery. Of Failure which is Success 71 Finding how easily men will be gulled, how they court imposition, and demand of their teachers that they be charla- tans — he has yielded to the temptation and fallen. Then, sick at heart with self-contempt, he has sought consola- tion in the excitement of wine. Para- celsus receives his friend with a raillery which cuts him to the quick, and mockingly assures him that he is a miserable failure. As their common friend Aprile had thought to achieve everything through the pursuit of beauty and failed, so he had failed in his intention of mastering life by knowledge. Festus leaves him foiled and bewildered. Then the expose comes, and Paracelsus, denounced as an impostor, is driven from his professor’s chair, and his name Bom- bastus passes for ever into the lan- guage of the world as a term to express empty pretensions and inflated self-esteem. So far our poet follows the facts of 72 Success and Failure history. The failure stands confessed. But now Browning would teach how this failure is in reality success. In this he follows a line which is all his own. He therefore shows us Paracel- sus, broken and discredited, returning to his first friend, Festus — Michal, alas, is dead ! — to die. He turns to die with his hand in that hand of love which he had ignored if not despised. He has made the discovery — this, after all, has been the vital piece of knowledge gathered in his life — that knowledge and power are of little worth without love. How can a man be separated from his kind ? They are half of him- self, aye, and the larger half. To be human, to be in sympathy with men, to draw on their affections and to give them love in return, is better than to discover and to bestow upon them facts as from the hands of a god. Nay, the whole of life is given to us for our chance of learning love. Paracelsus has become very humble now, and Of Failure which is Success 73 craves nothing but to be restored to his fellows, even in death : I want to be forgotten, even by God. But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me W hen I shall die, within some narrow grave, Not by itself— for that would be too proud — But where such graves are thickest ; let it look Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round, So that the peasant at his brother’s bed May tread upon my own and know it not ; And we shall all be equal at the last, Or classed according to life’s natural ranks, Fathers, sons, brothers, friends — not rich nor wise, Nor gifted : lay me thus, then say, “ He lived Too much advanced before his brother men ; They kept him still in front ; ’twas for their good, But yet a dangerous station. It were strange That he should tell God he had never ranked With men ; so, here at last he is a man.” That may seem poor success out of a life’s failure. But it is enough. “The soul is at last awakened within him.” In many things we all err. We try the bypaths, and the gleaming ways which seem to lead upward to the heights, seem to scale heaven by a 74 Success and Failure short and hazardous climb. It is something if the thunder breaks and drives us down, or some tale of the barren summit makes us wise in time, so that at any rate before death falls, we find ourselves within the wicket- gate, on the right road, though far away. It is by failures more than by successes that God produces that result. And therefore the true success, in his eyes, is often what passes here as failure. If I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time : I press God’s lamp Close to my breast ; its splendour soon or late Will pierce the gloom ; I shall emerge one day. OF THE ADMIRATION OF FAILURE That desire of Paracelsus to be laid “ within some narrow grave, not by itself — for that would be too proud — but where such graves are thickest,” reminds one of the beautiful story told of Lamennais. The great preacher, who had striven so passionately for the rights of the people against the corrupt tyranny of the Church, who under the ban of the Church had suffered the loss of all things — a failure, one might say, if ever there was one — excommunicated by Rome, and not received by any kindlier Church, the martyr of the people, yet not as it were recognised by the people for j6 Success and Failure whom he suffered martyrdom, made this request in dying : he would not have a monument, nor be in any way distinguished from others, but might he be buried among the thousands of nameless dead in Pere la Chaise? Let life’s acknowledged failure be lost or merged in that vast seeming failure of our common mortality — for it is in the very vastness of this apparent failure, the nameless graves, the rolling tide of humanity, breaking in monotonous roar, wave after wave on that stillness and darkness of the tomb ; it is in this tragical fact, fitted to make angels weep, that the yearning for redemptive success strains to the point of. pro- phecy and assured belief. If the failures of life were few, we should despair of them But they are many, very many. In a great London ceme- tery or at Pere la Chaise, more per- sistently than with Gray in Stoke Poges churchyard, we are driven to some demand of a solution which can- Of the Admiration of Failure 77 not be set aside. Earth’s successes leave us, in such a situation, with the dreariest sense of failure. These dis- tinguished names have become only names, hardly distinguished. How faded are these grouped banners ranged over the tombs of the soldiers ! Who can tell us anything of this eminent judge, this poet, counted facile princeps of his time (that is the assertion on the grave of Edmund Waller, Milton’s contemporary, at Beacon sfield) ? What can be known of this famous knight and his lady, the long line of sons diminishing in height kneeling behind him, the long line of daughters diminish- ing in height kneeling behind her ? And these are the illustrious among the great majority — the handful of human beings who lived in a civilised country, which does not in revolution or in neglect efface the records of its dead. To the millions of those who have lived and died these are as the bright stars, Sirius, Arcturus, Aide- 78 Success and Failure baran, to the dust of the Milky Way. Yes, earth’s successes afford no con- solation to an eye that ranges far. Human life, if it is to be justified at all, can only depend on counsel for the defence, who will take the bold course, that its meaning is entirely determined by its future. As a be- ginning, as a preliminary stage, some- thing can be said for it. As an end, as a whole in itself, nothing, absolutely nothing. For the interpretation which hope gives to even the worst failures of life, I turn instinctively again to Browning, who seems to have made this subject his own. The poor, second-rate writers have little hope. They handle humanity and the woes of life in a way which points to despair. It is what George Eliot used to call “ vivisection, with no touch of a healer.” But Browning had an unconquerable conviction that God is not to be foiled. He will take you therefore into the presence of the Of the Admiration of Failure 79 world’s most dismal failures, and raise his chant of irrepressible hope even there. We are not obliged to examine the theology of such a situation as is given in Apparent Failure. Our theo- logy is of things we know, things re- vealed and placed within our appre- hension ; a firm rock on which we may stand in the waste of waters. But there is a vast world about the little region of the revealed ; there our hearts beat, and our hopes aspire, though we cannot know. Will you look at that little poem at the end of Dramatis Personce ? We find our- selves in the Morgue at Paris. There lie behind the glass three corpses : The three men who did most abhor Their life in Paris yesterday, So killed themselves. Now the poet can only think of these three men that God made them. This poor boy was foiled in ambition ; this fierce Socialist was sick of a life which he could not remedy ; and this unhappy 8o Success and Failure debauchee, stained with lust, and the greed of gambling, was frustrated, and chose death. Yes, the lesson is terrible enough. No one can stand here with- out feeling that goodness is better than badness, gentleness than fierceness, sanity than madness ; but — here rises the wrestling cry of the optimist and the believer in God — but, My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched ; That what began best, can’t end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. t( My own hope is.” Yes, it can be at the most a hope, a longing to vindi- cate the love and the power of God. It remaineth unrevealed. The ignoble failures of life are not meant to leave us sprinkled with rosewater, and laughingly expectant, but in sackcloth and ashes, seriously asking where the royal road was missed, and how one can avoid the divergence into the Of the Admiration of Failure 8 1 byways of sin, and the mazes of the heart. We need, God needs, our poet of hope. In the circumambient air of the unrevealed, he lets lights flash, and soft voices sound. This is largely the function of poetry. But for knowledge, for the practical guidance of life, we need a more sure word of testimony. And all that we knoiv forbids us to take refuge in indolent dreams, that the faults of passion and lust, the ruin of pride and selfishness, the mad mis- anthropy of men who would make the world just by injustice, and establish the throne of love by hate, can be lightly set aside in a life to come, while the souls in a new birth start untainted and forgetful. It were a pleasant theory if we all lived out of contact with the frenz}^, the crime, the sewer of sin. But face to face with these hateful things, which ever threaten to gain the mastery, we are constantly thrown back on the more probable theory that sin, and the F 82 Success and Failure failures it causes, come under an in- calculable penalty. Yet Browning may be right in vindicating even those three forlorn and mis-shapen corpses. The man who takes his life in madness may not be responsible. The crimes which horrify the world may often be the errors of a mind bent, but perversely, on good. The very debauchee may have excuses in God’s sight which even he himself would hardly dare to urge. But I for one, in this dim light of the world, and unillumined here by any definite truth of God, hold very firmly that what is sin, what is in God’s sight sin, and sin’s undoubted failures, pass out of our sight under the cloud of the wrath of God ; and of such failures we can only speak with pity and awe, and infinite humility, considering lest we also be tempted. But the noble failures, those which arise from the disparity between the soul’s aspiration and the limited possi- Of the Admiration of Failure 83 bilities of life, failures not for the most part moral, but of time and space, those failures which the foolish world dreads almost as much as death, I claim for them your sincere admira- tion. We have been occupied, and very properly, most of our time in thinking of that large and ultimate meaning of success, the realisation of the soul, of the will of God, of the Christian life ; and we have 1 trust all been led to discern and to love that success, even when it is accompanied, or even effected, by apparent failure in the world. But even if we stop short of that high argument, there is a kind of failure which noble minds will always admire, and which ignoble minds will always despise, so that the manner in which you regard it becomes in a way the test of your spiritual condition. There is a sense in which the mere consistency of mental effort, though it 84 Success and Failure produce no apparent result, may be regarded as an end in itself, and capable of defying the world’s sneer of failure. “ To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life,” says R. L. Steven- son in his posthumous work, “ Weir of Hermiston,” a final confession there- fore of a life which was handicapped, “and perhaps only in law and the higher mathematics may this devotion be maintained, suffice to itself without reaction, and find continual rewards without excitement ” — a weary confes- sion, perhaps, for if this satisfaction is not found in imaginative and literary work, law and higher mathematics present rather a cheerless prospect. But the judgment is just, given the great outlook, the sense of immortality, and the taste of the truth that humanity is corporate, and each effort towards discovery or enlightening thought, however partial or limited, is reckoned in the gross gain of the whole. Of the Admiration of Failure 85 Now and again, you come across a man who has devoted his life to a discovery or to a branch of study which the world is little concerned with. He has been content to live in poverty and obscurity, not because he thinks that he can realise the end in view, but merely because he thinks that it ought to be realised. Ars longa } vita brevis . He has lived in the length of art, and not in the brevity of life. And in his unremunerated toil, the quiet faith has formed that not only is the knowledge he seeks immortal and sure of attainment, if not by him, then by those who come after him, but he also himself is immortal, and in this apparently futile task of his life is trying a prelude to a future which is not doomed to futility. Men in this mood give us a broader conception of God and the universe ; they are the salt of the earth. Observe them and study them in the light of Browning’s poem, A Grammarian's 86 Success and Failure Funeral , one of the few poems of the greatest teacher of our century which have got almost within the reach of every one. In the great period of the revival of learning in Europe- — the days of Erasmus, let us suppose, or of that Gerard, Erasmus’ father, whom Charles Reade made immortal in The Cloister and the Hearth — there is a laborious scholar who has devoted his life to the careful study of Greek grammar. Much depends on the minute understanding of Greek gram- mar — the right interpretation of the Greek Testament, for example. Not ambitious of broad achievements, this scholar has aimed only at settling the usage of a few particles, such as the enclitic ye; as he slowly dies of para- lysis, brought on by unremitting toil, he pursues his work just as if he had years of life before him. This is his task — a small one — he cannot finish it; but he will carry it just as far as he can, and when he can go no farther, Of the Admiration of Failure 87 he will lay down his pen, and let his spirit rest, strong in the assurance that “ Man has Forever ” — mankind per- haps, or the individual man ? It matters not to him, for he has identified his life with the New Learning ; he is one of the body of scholars who will make Greek live again. He will be satisfied to live in their success. And for himself, indifferent to fame, devoted to the great pursuit of his life — well, perhaps beyond the grave he will have time to consider himself, and a good God will speak of a “ well done, good and faithful ” — perhaps, but he has hardly entertained that idea. And now here are his pupils, carry- ing his corse on their shoulders to the top of the hill, that they may bury him there ; the soul of the man who accom- plished nothing has still an affinity with the heights. And as they climb they sing. He did not draw the circle premature, heedless of far gain, greedy for quick return of profits. Now, with 88 Success and Failure a grand sweep of the eye, he took in a range in which his brief human life, prolonged to the utmost, could be only the opening movement. He would have heaven’s success found, nor care about earth’s failure. Listen to the song of his scholars : That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it ; This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. Yes, aim at a unit, and you may hit it ; but aim at a million, and you may fail though you have attained many units, or even thousands. Thus, your man of the low aims has the world here, but as for the next ? It is not within his project. But this man of the high aims has thrown himself forward on God. Shall he not find Him ? Surely. Now we have reached the plat- form on the hill’s top, the haunt of all the high fliers of the feathered race : Of the Admiration of Failure 89 This man decided not to live, but know ; Bury him here ; Here — here’s his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go ! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send. Lofty designs must close in like effects, Loftily lying, Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying. This failure, then, we shall admire when we are trained by our seers and poets to understand the truth. How much more the failure of those who, having set their hearts on God, and far off divine events, are in this world dim-eyed from excess of distant light ; and left-handed — left-handed from pre- occupation of the right hand in eternal things ! But now we must come to a con- clusion and spread full sail for our port. Many men spend their lives in vain fears ; living among shadows, they are frightened by the shadows. One of 90 Success and Failure them dreads poverty, another the col- lapse of his professional prospects ; one dreads a nameless grave, another a lost reputation. This fear of failure is one of the strongest motives in life, and one of the meanest. This, more than anything else, keeps us from setting our eyes on the curve of the eternal aspiration, and prevents great things from being done. But our only dread should be lest we so pitch the scale of life that we can attain com- plete success in it. What we should accept with equanimity, if not with gratitude, is the discovery that our endeavour has been for that Impossible which draws our spirits out to the Real. And this brings to my mind a vision of the last things. On the shore of the invisible land souls were arriving ; and putting off the garments which they had brought with them from life ; they were stepping on to the beach stripped and apparent. There had been a crowd to witness their de- parture from the shore of the visible ; Of the Admiration of Failure 91 there was also a crowd to witness their arrival in the invisible. Now, the company of souls was great, and I found it only possible to observe three or four at the most. And standing where I did, at the meeting line of the two worlds, I was a witness of every detail in the scene, and my eye was the more riveted to the few instances which attracted my attention. There was Alexander the Great, who left the shore of the visible with extraordinary acclamations. I heard all the roar of Babylon and the muttered applause of conquered nations. The farewells were such as would be given to a god who had visited, and was now leaving, a lower world. Poets were chanting threnodies ; women were weeping ; great captains were lamenting and eye- ing each other with dismay, like dogs when the leash is withdrawn. Alex- ander himself seemed not unwilling to go. The wine was in him. He seemed to himself on the confines of a con- quered world, and a certain weariness 92 Success and Failure of achievement had come over him. He passed, the earth ringing with the cry, “ Successful.” But in the brief passage his trappings fell away ; and for all the bravery of his departure from the shore of the visible, I saw that he had as much as he could do to effect even a footing on the invisible. The crowd that was there to receive him did not recognise him among the passengers ; and when they recognised him, they fell back disappointed. I heard a long murmur to the effect that he had no affinities in this place, and presently I saw him wander along the shore disconsolate, his hands reached out to the distant coast he had left, like an exile who never can return. And almost at the same time I be- held Csesar, calm and debonair, em- barked upon the ship amid the mingled tears and execrations of mankind. He, too, was willing to depait, having at- tained all that could be attained, as poet, historian, governor, and organiser of men. His coming was eagerly ex- Of the Admiration of Failure 93 pected on the other shore, but he had the same difficulty as Alexander in dis- embarking, and his foot slipped as he touched the strand, but he did not be- think him to avert the omen by kissing it and claiming it as his motherland. With a look of high disgust he rose and sought for some recognisable face. He was singularly shrunk, and the multitude inquired if this was the man who had never been beaten in a battle, and had never missed his design. And I heard him say, with a great sigh, that he was not conscious of ever having won a battle, or attained a design ; and this design least of all was accomplished, this battle least of all was won ; for he had believed that by dying he would conquer life, and would reach at least the goal of ceasing to be. And then I observed two who set off from the shore of the visible with so inconsiderable a state that, among the crowd, I could hardly discern what was happening. The one appeared 94 Success and Failure to be hurled on to the deck of the ship with loud cries of “ Crucify Him/’ and a little company of those who seemed to regret, could not so much as make their feeble voices heard. Little had He to lay aside on the passage, for of earthly vestments He seemed to wear none. But very wonderful was the reception that awaited Him on that other shore. For it appeared as if the \vhole land was moved at His coming, and the shout of a conqueror went before Him, and the adoration of a god followed after. On the one shore there had been nothing but the loud deep cry of failure, on the other the cry “ Victory ” echoed and re- echoed, as if serried ranks of men caught up the sound, and whole circles of hills reverberated it, and passed it on to infinite distances. In this mighty irruption of victory and suc- cess, I noted that a new movement began ; and the stamp of crucifixion seemed to become a passport into the invisible courts. For many came now Of the Admiration of Failure 95 to the landing-place radiant with a shining cross upon their brows. And among the rest there was one that held my attention until the vision faded. It was a soul that had wrought for years in a city slum. She had gone from room to room, and returned to her own day after day, but no room seemed improved ; and in the shifting tide of misery and sin no one could be arrested and grasped long enough to be saved. And now that she put off from the shore of the visible, her failure was so complete that not one of those whom she had visited came to see her on her deathbed, and the world outside the slum had forgotten that she existed. There were no tears except her own, which were shed over the futility of her life. There were no words of regret except her own, not unmingled with gratitude — the regret that she had done so little, the grati- tude that she had been allowed even to try. go Success and Failure Here, in the ruins of my years, Master, I thank Thee through my tears — Thou suffered’st here, and did’st not fail ; Thy bleeding feet these paths have trod — But Thou wert strong, and I am frail. And so she embarked. But her re- ception on the other shore was sur- prising. She arrived bearing the radiant mark of the cross on her brow, and it appeared as if all her treasures had gone on before and were awaiting her, and now at last her heart was where her treasures had long been. She seemed personally known to everybody ; and when she heard her life greeted as a great success, she re- membered how often, in the long and weary years, from the torn edges of the fruitless days drops of sweetness had distilled, and a hope had always nestled in her heart that, though an unprofitable servant, she was serving a profitable Lord, and though her eye was set on no low or earthly success, in heaven she would be not a failure.