to make it
justly, to make it cleanly, and, having amassed their fortune, strive to
benefit the lot of those by whose labour they amassed it, and whose
future, and the future of whose children, are at once their charge and
their most profound interest. But these men are so few--they are so few
that almost everybody knows their names. The great masses of practical
business men possess the "soul" of a lump of lead, the ideals of little
money-grubbing attorneys, the "vision" of a chimpanzee in a jungle. They
are "cute," and, for the end towards which they strive, they are clever.
But they are nothing more. And, because of them, there is this "eternal
unrest" for which the ignorant blame "labour" and the still more ignorant
blame "modern education." (Ye gods--what is it?)

_Abraham Lincoln_

Success and fame which are purely personal are always abortive in the
long run. Unless a Big Achievement has some splendid Vision behind it,
it is soon almost as completely forgotten as if it had never been. Or it
may remain in the memory of posterity as a name only, without influencing
that mind in the very slightest degree. A mystic must be a practical man
as well, if his "vision" is not to be lost in the smoke of mere words and
theories; just as a practical man must at the same time be something of a
mystic if his labour is to live and bear fruit a hundredfold. Abraham
Lincoln was a mystic as well as a practical man. That is why the ideal
of statesmanship for which he lived has influenced the world since his
time far more than men equally famous in their day. It was this
"invisible power" behind his ideal which triumphed over all opposition at
last, and which continues to triumph in spite of the pigmy-souled crowd
of party politicians who still wrangle in the political arena. Nothing
lasting is ever accomplished without "vision," and the spiritual, though
long in coming, will yet triumph over ignorance and prejudice and
selfishness, even though it comes through war and the overthrow of
capitalists and autocrats. The life and the ideals of Abraham Lincoln
are yet one more piece of evidence of this.

_Reconstruction_

And just so far as modern Socialism possesses this "mystical power" just
so far will it go--inevitably. But, personally, I always think that
Socialism (so-called) is far too busy attacking the elderly and decaying,
both in men and traditions. It should attack youth; or, rather, it
should fi