In every land and in every age since the curtain first rose on the world's great drama men have been in quest of the Fleece of Gold. The onward progress of the race since our rude forefathers from the leaves of the tree formed their clothes, and in the somber depths of the primeval forest constructed their habitation, is due to an insatiable desire to possess the coveted prize. Hanging before man's gaze in the consecrated borders of his existence, it has inspired him to greater usefulness. He has built ships and traversed the seas, invented machines, reared cities, and established laws. In science and art and literature he has vied with his fellow-man and given a mighty impulse to civilization, all for the Fleece of Gold--success.
The world worships at the shrine of success. It regards it as man's greatest attribute. And whether we find it in secular affairs, substantiated by material grandeur, or in the mysterious realms of the inner life characterized by the serene consciousness of truth, it must ever be the goal of human aspiration.
It is the thought of some day having their efforts crowned that causes men hotly to pursue the phantom or the reality of their lives. This aspiration keeps the torch of hope ablaze in the midnight darkness, and the spirits buoyed under the noon-day glare, while men forge on to the goal. The surging throngs of a great city, the active hands and brains in the bee-hives of industry and the many places of business, the vast army of seekers after knowledge in the schools and colleges throughout the land, the men of fame in the halls of Congress molding the affairs of the Nation, the countless army tilling the fields under the open sky, the legions in the dark caves of earth searching for treasure--all are seeking to enter the golden gate of success.
Said Mr. A. B. Farquhar in a baccalaureate address to the students of McDonough College: "Success colors everything. It is the essence of all excellencies, the latent power which compels the favor of fortune and subjugates fate. The world worships success regardless of how acquired; makes it a standard for judging men, an indispensable credential for all approval. If a man succeeds he is held to be wise, even though mediocre; if he fails, whatever his learning and intrinsic merit, little regard is paid to him. Success gilds and glorifies a multitude of blunders and littlenesses, and people are thought merely to exist who do not keep themselves on the road leading to it. In view of all this, it is no wonder that we see all humanity looking earnestly toward success and moving with eager step in search of it.
"Success is essentially the accomplishment of one's desires and purposes, the realization of one's ideals. But this definition does not necessarily imply a high state of being. As I sit by my window writing, the hoarse cry of a rag-man and the mournful strains of a hand-organ come to my ears. That able-bodied Greek, who is so lavish with his 'music,' and the rag-man, who is buying what the other is distributing freely, both are in quest of the same thing--'success.'"
Alas! the world too often measures success by false standards--worships the Golden Fleece, forgetting the high purpose it might be made to serve; so dazzled by means that ends become oblivious. The spirit of the age is to pay homage to great riches. The finely attired custodian of a money bag too often is regarded as an exponent of success. On this point we should guard ourselves, first ascertaining if the gorgeous equipage is the "genuine fleece," or only a sham intended to deceive. A mansion on a valuable corner lot does not constitute the "golden quality," nor does a million dollars in bank epitomize its character. Its language is not spoken in the dialect of Wall Street or of wheat pits. Gold, grain, stocks, and bonds and estates too often mean the perversion of those qualities most valuable to human life. Realty is not the prime issue of life, but reality. If that which a man gets in his pay envelope, however lucrative that may be, constituted his only reward, his effort would be miserably compensated.
The man who has spent his life like a scaraboid beetle rolling up money, without due regard for the common virtues of life, has not left "footprints on the sands of time," but only a zigzag trail along the highway over which he has journeyed. He has not achieved success in that he has accumulated riches without a corresponding accumulation of "wealth." To seek a purely selfish and material success is to defeat the very purpose of one's existence--"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In the very conquest for this baser type a man blights his sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us in dollars and cents, we are not on the road leading to success. For success does not consist in the acquisition of the material, so much as in a mental discipline that seeks objectively to subordinate intrinsic value.
We must confess, however, that the age in which we live is one of brick and mortar; that materialism and not æstheticism reigns over us. The book-keeper's pen has usurped the office of the artist's brush and the carpenter's chisel that of the sculptor. Intrinsic worth and dividend-paying value holds sway, and even the gift-horse is looked in the mouth while the priceless motive that prompted its giving is forgotten.
The commercial spirit which pervades the atmosphere of modern times is disintegrating the sublimer side of human life. The gilded god of materialism is lavishing its blessings in the realm of science and invention and commercial enterprise, at the expense of aestheticism, till to-day there are thousands of artisans to every artist. We have an abundance of stone masons, but few Phidiases or Angelos; hundreds of organ grinders, but few Beethovens or Webers or Bachs; a full quota of men engrossed in the cold calculus of business, but a scarcity of Homers or Dantes or Virgils.
Speaking of this material aspect of our epoch and how it is likely to be regarded in the future, when the paradise of ideal living is regained, a modern writer says: "Will not the intense preoccupation of material production, the hurry and strain of our cities, the draining of life into one channel, at the expense of breadth, richness, and beauty, appear as mad as the Crusades, and perhaps of a lower type of madness? Could anything be more indicative of a slight but general insanity than the aspect of the crowd on the streets of Chicago?" Why is it that the poems that have lived for centuries, and the masterpieces of the world's great painters and sculptors are not being equaled in the dawn of the twentieth century? The answer lies in the widespread devotion to realism instead of idealism. The immortals have joined the mortals in search for the Fleece of Gold. And Wordsworth's oft-quoted lines were never more applicable to us than now: