plies just as much to the success that is within the reach of almost
every one of us. I think that any man who has had what is regarded in
the world as a great success must realize that the element of chance
has played a great part in it. Of course a man has to take advantage
of his opportunities; but the opportunities have to come. If there is
not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great
occasion you don't get the great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in
times of peace no one would have known his name now. The great crisis
must come, or no man has the chance to develop great qualities.

There are exceptional cases, of course, where there is a man who can
do just one thing, such as a man who can play a dozen games of chess
or juggle with four rows of figures at once--and as a rule he can do
nothing else. A man of this type can do nothing unless in the one
crisis for which his powers fit him. But normally the man who makes
the great success when the emergency arises is the man who would have
made a fair success in any event. I believe that the man who is really
happy in a great position--in what we call a career--is the man who
would also be happy and regard his life as successful if he had never
been thrown into that position. If a man lives a decent life and does
his work fairly and squarely so that those dependent on him and
attached to him are better for his having lived, then he is a success,
and he deserves to feel that he has done his duty and he deserves to
be treated by those who have had greater success as nevertheless
having shown the fundamental qualities that entitle him to respect. We
have in the United States an organization composed of the men who
forty-five years ago fought to a finish the great Civil War. One thing
that has always appealed to me in that organization is that all of the
men admitted are on a perfect equality provided the records show that
their duty was well done. Whether a man served as a lieutenant-general
or an eighteen-year-old recruit, so long as he was able to serve for
six months and did his duty in his appointed place, then he is called
Comrade and stands on an exact equality with the other men. The same
principle should shape our associations in ordinary civil life.

I am not speaking cant to you. I remember once sitting at a table with
six or eight other public officials, and each was explaining* how he
regarded being in public life, how only the sternes