determination or drift, had become
rich, and whose sole claim to distinction was that they had become
rich. Again and again I have seen "success" which seemed to me to be
the brand of ignominy rather than the stamp of worth,--the epitaph of
culture, if not of character. I look on with a profound and regretful
pity. You successful,--YOU! with half your powers lying dormant,--you,
with your imagination stifled, your conscience unfaithful, your
chivalry deadened into shrewdness, your religion a thing of tithes and
forms;--you successful, in whom romance has died out; to whom fidelity
and constancy and aspiration are nothing but a voice; who remember love
and heroism and self-sacrifice only as the vaporings of youth; who
measure principles by your purse, utility by your using; who see
nothing glorious this side of honesty; nothing terrible in the
surrender of faith; nothing degrading that is not amenable to the law;
nothing in your birthright that may not be sold for a mess of pottage,
if only the mess be large enough, and the pottage savory;--you
successful? Is this success? Then, indeed, humanity is a base and
bitter failure.

It is not necessary that a man should be a robber or a murderer, in
order to degrade himself. Without defrauding his neighbor of a cent,
without laying himself open to a single accusation of illegality or
violence, a man may destroy himself. A moral suicide, he kills out all
that belongs to his highest nature, and leaves but a bare and battered
wreck where the temple of the holy Ghost should rise.

"Measure not the work
Until the day's out, and the labor done;
Then bring your gauges."

Is that man successful who trades on his country's necessities? He, not
a politician, nor a horse-jockey, nor a footpad, but a man who talks of
honor and integrity,--a man of standing and influence, whose virtue is
not tempted by hunger, whose life has been such that he may be supposed
intelligently to comprehend the interests which are at stake, and the
measures which should be taken to secure them,--is he successful
because he obtains in a few months, by the perquisites--not illegal,
but strained to the extreme verge of legal--of an office,--not illegal,
but accidental, not in the line of promotion,--a sum of money which the
greatest merit and the highest office in the land cannot claim for
years? He is shrewd. He understands his business. He knows the ins
and outs. He can manage the sharper