III
Another novel read, another history finished, another biography turned over—enough of them. I am done with them. I prefer to empty another pitcher. Give me my sangaree and my own thoughts in preference to their twaddle. And why twaddle? Well, because each and all of them have a hero—a good man, or a great man, or a successful man, or a man in love with a woman, or a man in love with himself—whereas I am none of them, and I want to hear about myself. I want to hear about a failure. A man who sadly admits that he is a failure. These, then, are the Memoirs of a Failure.
Certainly there have been more failures than heroes, but fiction delights to mock the failures merely to set off the hero. Surely there have been more obscure men than famous men, but history records chiefly the attainments of the leaders. Whereas, the unknown soldier, the insignificant clerk, the patient craftsman, the underpaid writer and teacher—these humble workers had their story, perhaps more touching and perhaps less callous than the career of the noted artist, the famous statesman, the great general.
Who shall write the Epic of Unsuccess—the song of the Vast Obscure?
Did you want to paint?
And have you found that you could not? I have.
Did you try to preach, and lose conviction?
Yes, catechiser.
Did you strive to write and find that you had nothing to say?
I opened a lumber-room of useless odds and ends.
Did you see corruption and poverty and vice, and wish to conquer them?
It was a futile task.
You are soothed by music, but the art is another’s.
True, I have no genius.
What have you, then?
Nothing, but my foiled desires. My dearest hopes are rendered unavailing.
And why are you so?
Ah, that I do not know. Ask the hero, the successful man. He can tell you what I lack. I met a drunken man who said:
“Two kernels of corn fell on the ground, and sprouted in the self-same way. A toad hopped along and passed his dung at the roots of one, while the other shrunk in the shade.”