Complete.
NOT exactly the sort of thing for an idle fellow to think about, is it? But outsiders, you know, often see most of the game; and sitting in my arbor by the wayside, smoking my hookah of contentment, and eating the sweet lotus leaves of indolence, I can look out musingly upon the whirling throng that rolls and tumbles past me on the great highroad of life.
Never-ending is the wild procession. Day and night you can hear the quick tramp of the myriad feetsome running, some walking, some halting and lame; but all hastening, all eager in the feverish race, all straining life and limb and heart and soul to reach the ever-receding horizon of success.
Mark them as they surge alongmen and women, old and young, gentle and simple, fair and foul, rich and poor, merry and sadall hurrying, bustling, scrambling. The strong pushing aside the weak; the cunning creeping past the foolish; those behind elbowing those before; those in front kicking, as they run, at those behind. Look close, and see the flitting show. Here is an old man panting for breath; and there a timid maiden, driven by a hard and sharp-faced matron; here is a studious youth, reading How to Get On in the World, and letting everybody pass him as he stumbles along with his eyes on his book; here is a bored-looking man, with a fashionably dressed woman jogging his elbow; here a boy gazing wistfully back at the sunny village that he never again will see; here, with a firm and easy step, strides a broad-shouldered man; and here, with a stealthy tread, a thin-faced, stooping fellow dodges and shuffles upon his way; here, with gaze fixed always on the ground, an artful rogue carefully works his way from side to side of the road, and thinks he is going forward; and here a youth with a noble face stands, hesitating as he looks from the distant goal to the mud beneath his feet.
And now into the sight comes a fair girl, with her dainty face growing more wrinkled at every step; and now a careworn man, and now a hopeful lad.
A motley thronga motley throng! Prince and beggar, sinner and saint, butcher and baker and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors, and plowboys and sailorsall jostling along together. Here the counsel in his wig and gown, and here the old Jew clothesman under his dingy tiara; here the soldier in scarlet, and here the undertakers mute in streaming hatband and worn cotton gloves; here the musty scholar, fumbling his faded leaves, and here the scented actor, dangling his showy seals. Here the glib politician, crying his legislative panaceas; and here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack, holding aloft his quack cures for human ills. Here the sleek capitalist, and there the sinewy laborer; here the man of science, and here the shoeblack; here the poet, and here the water-rate collector; here the cabinet minister, and there the ballet dancer. Here a red-nosed publican, shouting the praises of his vats, and here a temperance lecturer at fifty pounds a night; here a judge, and there a swindler; here a priest, and there a gambler. Here a jeweled duchess, smiling and gracious; here a thin lodging-house keeper, irritable with cooking; and here a wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry in paint and finery.
Cheek by cheek they struggle onward. Screaming, cursing, and praying, laughing, singing, and moaning, they rush past side by side. Their speed never slackens, the race never ends. There is no wayside rest for them, no halt by cooling fountains, no pause beneath green shades. On, on, onon through the heat and the crowd and the duston, or they will be trampled down and loston, with throbbing brain and tottering limbson, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred and a gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up another space.
And yet in spite of the killing pace and the stony track, who but the sluggard or the dolt can hold aloof from the course? Wholike the belated traveler that stands watching fairy revels till he snatches and drains the goblin cup, and springs into the whirling circlecan view the mad tumult, and not be drawn into its midst? Not I, for one. I confess to the wayside arbor, the pipe of contentment, and the lotus leaves being altogether unsuitable metaphors. They sounded very nice and philosophical, but Im afraid I am not the sort of person to sit in arbors, smoking pipes, when there is any fun going on outside. I think I more resemble the Irishman, who, seeing a crowd collecting, sent his little girl out to ask if there was going to be a rowCos, if so, father would like to be in it.
I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. I like to hear of people getting on in itbattling their way bravely and fairlythat is, not slipping through by luck or trickery. It stirs ones old Saxon fighting blood, like the tales of knights who fought gainst fearful odds that thrilled us in our schoolboy days.
And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds too. There are giants and dragons in this nineteenth century, and the golden casket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in the storybooks. There, Algernon takes one long, last look at the ancestral hall, dashes the teardrop from his eye, and goes offto return in three years time, rolling in riches. The authors do not tell us how its done, which is a pity, for it would surely prove exciting.
But then not one novelist in a thousand ever does tell us the real story of his hero. They linger for a dozen pages over a tea party, but sum up a lifes history with he had become one of our merchant princes, or, he was now a great artist, with the whole world at his feet. Why, there is more real life in one of Gilberts patter songs than in half the biographical novels ever written. He relates to us all the various steps by which his office boy rose to be the ruler of the Queens navee, and explains to us how the briefless barrister managed to become a great and good judge, ready to try this breach of promise of marriage. It is in the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest of existence lies.
What we really want is a novel showing us all the hidden undercurrent of an ambitious mans careerhis struggles, and failures, and hopes, his disappointments and victories. It would be an immense success. I am sure the wooing of Fortune would prove quite as interesting a tale as the wooing of any flesh-and-blood maiden, though, by the way, it would read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, as the Ancients painted her, very like a womannot quite so unreasonable and inconsistent, but nearly soand the pursuit is much the same in one case as in the other. Ben Jonsons couplet
Court a mistress, she denies you; | |
Let her alone, she will court you |
But by that time you do not much care whether she smiles or frowns. Why could she not have smiled when her smiles would have thrilled you with ecstasy? Everything comes too late in this world.
Good people say that it is quite right and proper that it should be so, and that it proves ambition is wicked.
Bosh! Good people are altogether wrong. (They always are, in my opinion. We never agree on any single point.) What would the world do without ambitious people, I should like to know? Why, it would be as flabby as a Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the leaven which raises into wholesome bread. Without ambitious people the world would never get up. They are busybodies who are about early in the morning, hammering, shouting, and rattling the fire irons, and rendering it generally impossible for the rest of the house to remain in bed.
Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth! The men wrong, who, with bent back and sweating brow, cut the smooth road over which Humanity marches forward from generation to generation! Men wrong, for using the talents that their Master has intrusted to themfor toiling while others play!
Of course they are seeking their reward. Man is not given that God-like unselfishness that thinks only of others good. But in working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the Universe. The stream, in struggling onward, turns the mill wheel; the coral insect, fashioning its tiny cells, joins continents to each other; and the ambitious man, building a pedestal for himself, leaves a monument to posterity. Alexander and Cæsar fought for their own ends, but, in doing so, they put a belt of civilization half round the earth. Stephenson, to win a fortune, invented the steam engine; and Shakespeare wrote his plays in order to keep a comfortable home for Mrs. Shakespeare and the little Shakespeares.
Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against; and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet. But do not, for goodness sake, let them go strutting about, as they are so fond of doing, crying out that they are the true models for the whole species. Why, they are the deadheads, the drones in the great hive, the street crowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are working.
And let them not imagine eitheras they are also fond of doingthat they are very wise and philosophical, and that it is a very artful thing to be contented. It may be true that a contented mind is happy anywhere, but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is that both are put anywhere and are treated anyhow. Oh, you need not bother about him, is what is said; he is very contented as he is, and it would be a pity to disturb him. And so your contented party is passed over, and the discontented man gets his place.
If you are foolish enough to be contented, dont show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you dont you wont get any. In this world, it is necessary to adopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action for damages, and to demand ten times more than you are ready to accept. If you can feel satisfied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a thousand; if you start by suggesting a hundred, you will only get ten.
It was by not following this simple plan that poor Jean Jacques Rousseau came to such grief. He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss at living in an orchard with an amiable woman and a cow, and he never attained even that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the woman was not amiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was no cow. Now, if he had made up his mind for a large country estate, a houseful of angels, and a cattle show, he might have lived to possess his kitchen garden and one head of live stock, and even possibly have come across that rara avisa really amiable woman.
What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be for contented people! How heavy the time must hang upon their hands, and what on earth do they occupy their thoughts with, supposing that they have any? Reading the paper and smoking seems to be the intellectual food of the majority of them, to which the more energetic add playing the flute and talking about the affairs of the next-door neighbor.
They never know the excitement of expectation, nor the stern delight of accomplished effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man, life is a brilliant game,a game that calls forth all his tact, and energy, and nerve,a game to be won in the long run, by the quick eye and the steady hand, and yet having sufficient chance about its working out to give it all the glorious zest of uncertainty. He exults in it, as the strong swimmer in the heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle, as the soldier in the battle.
And if he be defeated, he wins the grim joy of fighting; if he lose the race, he, at least, has had a run. Better to work and fail than to sleep ones life away.
So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen! walk up, boys and girls! Show your skill and try your strength; brave your luck, and prove your pluck. Walk up! The show is never closed, and the game is always going. The only genuine sport in all the fair, gentlemenhighly respectable and strictly moralpatronized by the nobility, clergy, and gentry. Established in the year one, gentlemen, and been flourishing ever since!walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and take a hand. There are prizes for all, and all can play. There is gold for the man and fame for the boy; rank for the maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walk up, ladies and gentlemen, walk up!all prizes, and no blanks; for some few win, and as to the rest, why
The rapture of pursuing | |
Is the prize the vanquished gain. |