Gems of Thought: Success

Gems of Thought II— SUCCESS "Men are born to succeed, not to fail." — Thoreau. "No one can cheat you out of ultimate success, but yourself. — Emerson. "There are no sleeping cars on the road to success." — Here and There. "We cannot be successful in anything if we are uncertain." — Millard Fillmore. "He that rises again quickly and continues the race is as if he had not fallen." — Molineux. "The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for opportunity when it conies." — Disraeli. The mastery of the laws to do things is the accomplishment that counts for future work. — Van Dyke. In the University of Adversity the highest degree conferred is the ability to stand alone." — Selected. "Success and happiness are the flowers that spring from the plain, brown bulbs of thrift and saving."- — Japanese Proverb. "If geniuses are born, as we sometimes hear, they must yet be born again of study, struggle and work." — Horace Bushnell. "Who is successful? He only whose accomplishments, when taken together, equal or surpass the average attainments of mankind. — Litt. "Whenever you see a man who is successful in society, try to discover what makes him pleasing and, if possible, adopt him system." — Beaconsfield. "Success is an absolute mastery of the single thing in hand. Today the secret of commercial, mechanical, literary or artistic preeminence is told in one word: Concentration." — Chicago Herald-Examiner. "When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the World, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find that it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away timid adventurers." — O. A. Holmes. "There is but one straight road to success — that is merit. The man who is successful is the man who is useful. Capacity never lacks opportu- nity. It cannot remain undiscovered, because it is sought by too many anxious to use it."' — Burke Cochran. "The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night." From the "Ladder of St. Augustine," by Longfellow. The Lord spake unto Joshua: "Be thou strong and ve,ry courageous * * * Observe to do according to all the law. * * * Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, * * * then thou shalt make the way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. * * * Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

idffoj karts andffolfyhocks c/7 Story of Love, Struggle and Society I\uthM&nchbeV Chapter VI Edna got the new gown. To her amazement, John handed her the money two days before the big party. "I told you Phil was not the only one who could make money," Edna beamed proudly. John only answered her grump- ily. He did not appear to notice the new gown when she danced before him to dazzle him. He seemed nervous, irritable and preoccupied. He went to the party but did not enter into its gaiety. Though he was the finest dancer in town, as Edna so often said, and though he had never missed a waltz with her before, he sat out their favorite waltz in a darkened corner of the club piazza. It was significant of their new life that Edna did not seek him, did not even wonder why he was not there to claim their dance. Edna was becoming very popular as a young matron, more popular even than she had been as a girl. Every one thought her bewitchingly lovely in the new gown; everyone, that is, save John, crouching in the shadows. John was surprised to find several other men of "unques- tioned" income having "brain storms" out in the darkness away from the crowds and merrymaking. Towards the early hours of the morning the party broke up and John went directly to the office. He wasnt sleepy, he declared and there was work he wanted to do. Three years went by and still John and Edna were skating on thin ice, still on the outer edges of that peculiar something called "society." Several changes had happened. The after- affects of the war had been felt by many. Among the disas- trous consequences, was the bankruptcy of Edna's father. Worry over debts and anxiety for the future so preyed on his strength that he became an easy victim to pneumonia, from which he did not recover. Edna, an only child, was often with her mother, trying to help her bear the loss. John, left alone much of the time, did not complain, as Edna feared he might. In- deed he seemed to prefer solitude. Other changes, happier ones, had come about. Phil and Judith had become the happy parents of a son and daughter. Whether in envy or by way of apology, Edna appeared to re- gard the two youngsters in the light of a burden and expense.

332 IMPROVEMENT ERA John, already over-taxed with debt, listened well-nigh ap- palled as Edna detailed the endless chain of expense incident to the two innocents. There was the layette, basenet, crib, nur- sery, carriage, nurse, doctor bills and a train of incalculable incidentals. John decided he had troubles enough for the present, espe- cially when he noted the high-salaried nurse, which modern women, he was told, considered indispensable for the first two or three years of a child's life. With a tra'ned nurse in charge, a mother need not feel tired. She could make trips away, leaving baby home in charge of a nurse so competent that no anxiety need be felt for baby's welfare. So far had they drifted from their early ideal of marriage, that a childless home was no more incongruous than the daily strain they were making for appearances. One evening, how- ever, John almost forgot expediency. He returned home to find Edna in charge of the youngsters. She was cuddling tiny Judie while miniature Phil leaned against her, absorbed in his baby sister. Edna looked so tender and lovely that John found himself wishing the picture might be true, that he was return- ing home to find his wife and two such lo\ely children to fondle and love and laugh over. And somehow, a setting of wild roses and hollyhocks enveloped the three instead of the familiar rocker. He recalled then, a remark he once heard his father make to his mother as she sat one evening cuddling the baby sister. "You were lovely as a girl," he had heard his father say, "you were lovely as a wife and sweetheart; but you have been lovelier in your motherhood than in anything else." He would like to have been able to say that to Edna. But he closed his eyes on the alluring picture and the memories it evoked. He closed his eyes, moreover, as if he were shutting out not a pleasing but a painful picture. It was better, perhaps, for them that they had no children. Summer drew near. It had been hard enough, during the winter, to walk when others rode. There were times when ac- cepting chance invitations to ride took on an aspect of accepting charity. Usually Judith and Phil took them along but even so they were beginning to feel like poor relations. Judith was getting to be a trifle patronizing at times and Phil was often openly surly. The warm weather came on and Judith and Phil with the children and nurse, took delightful trips to the canyon or went on berry-picking jaunts. Sometimes John and Edna were in- cluded. But the nurse and babies with their accessories, filled the car. John and Edna refused a time or two and soon they were excluded altogether.

HEARTS AND HOLLYHOCKS 333 Sometimes all the neighbors, who had cars, and all in that neighborhood, save John and Edna, seemed to have them, drove to the hills for a breath of cool air and a quiet supper by the river. It was trying on Edna to see them off and wave goodbye merrily from her piazza; and then hear them come singing home by moonlight, refreshed for another day in the hot city. The summer was unusually long and sultry. Edna began to look pale and John was getting worn and bitter. He realized that Edna was out of things because of their poverty and the realization soured him on society and social dealings. He did not stop to reflect that what was poverty to them would have been wealth to his father and mother. John was driven to make another "investment." Again it succeeded. Determined to show "the bunch" that he and Edna could hold their own in the game, John bought a car, a Sedan, a luxurious model. Phil's respect came up with a bound. "Glad you are prospering, old man," he exclaimed, "some lucky investment, I suppose?" "Precisely," John responded with secret bitterness. "So that's what it takes to keep their respect," John fumed to himself. "Well, they shall have more then." Edna opened the season with a superb ball. She let it be whispered about that it was to be the most costly affair Win- throp had known. Nothing in Winthrop had been fine enough for the occasion. Flowers, orchestra and caterer were all brought from the larger adjacent city. The bills were spectacular. The furniture bill which had once stunned them was as nothing in comparison. Edna as hostess, was resplendent in a gorgeous new gown and displayed a necklace of rare beauty and — costliness. There was some talk, of course, since John was known to be on salary insufficient for such extravagances. Lucky investments, ex- plained everything. And John was of such known integrity that not a suspicion was breathed against his name. The haze of Indian summer was over everything, softening the jagged outlines of the mountains, obscuring the clouds, sub- duing restless humanity to dreaminess and reminiscence, when John was shocked into facing a grim reality whose jagged outline no autumlnal haze could soften. Over his head hung a cloud so dark no mist could obscure it. Dreams and remi- niscences were banished forever. He was thoroughly awake to the calamity that had befallen him. At the same time word came that Phil's father, who had been traveling since Phil's marriage, was coming home and would again take charge of the business. ' John got so he scarcely ate. He tossed so all night that Edna insisted that he have a room to himself. He became so

334 IMPROVEMENT ERA irritable that Edna dared not address him. Many a time he would score her roundly. "Our life has been a sham, a hollow, false-fronted sham," he would declare, "not a joyful pretense or a merry deception but a ghastly, inglorious, soul-deadening sham." Edna herself he would denounce as a mere piazza lady, too nice to toil, too superficial to think and too soulless to care. "And he, well the less said of himself the better." One afternoon he came in hurriedly, deadly pale, and told Edna to get on her things and they would get out into the coun- try for a little rest. Edna prepared a few sandwiches and got into the car beside him. The mystical haze of Indian sum- mer was over everything. The day was a day for dreaming and forgetting, a way for peaceful memories. It was a day for perfect companionship; but neither seemed aware of the pres- ence of the other except as a something to be reckoned with, not as a comrade. Without a word they drove along familiar ways toward the place of their honeymoon. Edna in anxious wonderment, John in silence too terrible to break, walked up the overgrown path to the little cottage. For three or four years no one had lived in the place. Its seclusion had saved it from the havoc of small boys; but time and neglect alone had wrought sad ruin. John threw himself down tragically near the spot where he had once come upon her making doll parasols and Paris hats out of hollyhocks and burdock leaves. Edna stared at him in some alarm. For an hour or more he sat silent beside her. Then: "I believe I could sleep a few minutes," he muttered. Edna made herself comfortable and he laid his head on her lap and slept. Yet even in sleep he did not relax but lay there breathing hard and sleeping as if sleep were work and terribly hard. How quiet a spot it was! Edna soon found herself listen- ing to the voices of nature, soft and elusive not strident and insistent like the noises which characterized their street. A soft swish, swish — the river at low ebb caressing the grassy banks, a sibilent sound, was it bee or — yes, it was a bee she could see it in a clover blossom near. What a lovely frock that satiny hollyhock would make, and the sunset — a billowy cape to en- compass it! What possibilities the place had for a summer home! She almost forgot to wonder about the grim shadow hanging over them. Yet, even in sleep John did not forget. Once he mur- mured, almost inaudibly: "God, I'm afraid of it all." "What did he mean?" Edna wondered. It was getting late and Edna

HEARTS AND HOLLYHOCKS 335 in reaching for a sandwich roused John. He sat up with a start, almost of terror. "Couldn't we get this place and fix, it up for a summer home," she proposed. John laughed shortly. "Of course we can get it just as we have got everything else." eH stood erect and stretched himself wearily: "I'm afraid of it all!" he exclamed again be- low his breath. Edna got to her feet with a start. What was the matter with him? Was he losing his reason? "Oh, Robert Service," he was quoting from Robert Service again. But how ghastly real the lines sounded! He protested he was not hungry when Edna offered him a sandwich. But he took the box beside him in the car. Phil was waiting for them — pacing up and down before their house when the car drove up. "We're waiting for you at the office, John," he announced casually. "I know," John returned with equal unconcern, "I must take Edna to the station to catch her train. I'll be back in a few minutes." Philip acquiesced and Edna in wonder followed John into the house. "I have* a ticket for you so you can visit your cousins in Denver for a while," he explained. "I've wired them to meet you. But you must take the train at once. Just shove a few things into your suit case. Your mother can send other things if you need them." Wonderingly Edna complied. She would have protested but there was something about John that held her back from any enquiry or question. He saw her onto the train, thrust her ticket and two green- backs into her hand and left her. Not a goodbye kiss or a word of any sort! Once Edna got up to leave the train. It was all so strange. But she was too late. It was already in motion. Then, to her dismay, she saw John go to their waiting car, take the box of sandwiches from the seat and make his way toward the freight yard. As her train pulled out someone boarded, steathily, a box- car, one of many that made up a long freight train just pulling out. Was it John she caught a glimpse of on the floor of a box-car, as her train went past? Was it John or was it some one terribly like him, some unfortunate fleeing from justice? And what was that package he clasped grimly in his arms? Was it the familiar box of sandwiches she had made that afternoon? (To be continued)

Two Sonnets i To Death (Written during severe illness) The Lotus-Crowned, Pale-Reaper, Dreaded One, And King of Terrors, Bringer of Sweet Sleep, — So we call Death. Mine now to vigil keep, And hear the clocks strike. Day its course hath run, Not mine, perhaps, to see another sun; These hours to joyance like swift torrents leap, The while to me, in pain, the moments creep, Who with life's dissonance so near hath done. Come, then, if must be, Death, and close mine eyes, Let change my being in this solemn night, As on the earth the mist of darkness lies. What though alone, no loved one in my sight? My ache of heart in widened vision dies, Be lost, old life-fears, in new dawn of light! Alfred Lambourne II To Life (Written during convalescence) The mystry supreme, O great unknown, Aye, that which animates the senseless dust, The vital spark that holds the flesh in trust, The link which binds us to the viewless throne! Aye, that in which Omnipotence is shown, Brings forth the savage and the most august, Aye, man, the coward, brave, the mean, the just, Hail thee! O, hail thee! Hail, 0 life — my own! Hail Life! Yet precious unto me thou art, And rich to me the thought of many lands; How sweet to feel love's rapture in the heart, Renewed emotions come like seraph bands. O added days be mine for noble strife, Completed tasks to crown my lease of life! Alfred Lambourne