74/100 Prosperity

74. Prosperity

Prosperity is the great test of human character. Many are not able to endure prosperity. It is like the light of the sun to a weak eye—glorious, indeed, in itself, but not proportioned to such an instrument. Greatness stands upon a precipice, and if prosperity carries a man ever so little beyond his poise, it overbears and dashes him to pieces.

Moderate prosperity is not only to be hopefully expected as the proper reward of a life's exertion, but to bring the best human qualities to any thing like perfection, to fill them with the sweet juices of courtesy and charity, prosperity, or a moderate amount of it, is required, just as sunshine is needed for the ripening of peaches and apricots. But prosperity, if it be good for the encouragement of humanity, is full of danger as well. There is ever a certain languor attending the fullness. When the heart has no more to wish, it yawns over its possession, and the energy of the soul goes out like a flame that has no more to devour. A smooth sea never made skillful mariners, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify men for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties and excite the invention, prudence, and skill of the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a life-time of softness and security.

It seems as if man were like the earth. It can not bask forever in the sunshine. The snows of Winter and its frosts must come and work in the ground, and mellow it to make it fruitful. A man upon whom continuous sunshine falls is like the earth in August—he becomes parched, hard, and close-grained. To some men the Winter and Spring come when they are young. Others are born in Summer, and made fit to live only by a Winter of sorrow coming to them when they are middle-aged or old. But come it must, and under its softening influence the mind is fitted for the routine of life, and then the warm, shining sun of prosperity spreads abroad in the heart its vivifying influence, and the best powers of man are developed.

The way to prosperity is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words—industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them every thing. There is no other way to arrive at a true prosperity. It is gained only by diligent application to the business of life. The men who may be said to be prosperous are seldom men who have been rocked in the cradle of indulgence or caressed in the lap of luxury, but they are men whom necessity has called from the shade of retirement to contend under the scorching rays of the sun with the stern realities of life, with all of its vicissitudes.

Many make the mistake of supposing that prosperity and happiness are identical terms. The most prosperous are often the most miserable, while happiness may dwell with him whose every effort has failed, provided only that he hath done his best. There is, therefore, a true and a false prosperity, much resembling each other. But the similarity is in resemblance only, for they differ in constitution. The one is true and substantial, and is the result of a well-lived life. Its rewards are inward content and surroundings of comfort; the enjoyment of the real blessings of life and the unfolding of all the better nature of man. Its imitation is the reward gained by unjust or dishonest means. It may have the luster, but it lacketh the ring and weight of the true metal. It may have the outward adornment, but can not bring its possessor the inward peace of him who hath the former. Instead of unfolding and expanding the heart of man, it hardens it and dries up the better nature.

Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it until you succeed, or until your experience shows that you should abandon it. A constant hammering will generally drive it home at last so that it can be clinched. When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object his mind will be constantly suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him were his brain occupied by a dozen different objects at once. Many a fortune has slipped through a man's fingers because of attention thus engaged; there is good sense in the old caution against having too many irons in the fire at once.

Adversity in early life often lays the foundation for future prosperity. The hand of adversity is cold, but it is the hand of a friend. It dispels from the youthful mind the pleasing, but vain, illusions of untaught fancy, and shows that the road to success and prosperity is always a road requiring energetic action to surmount its difficulties. There is something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of him who determines to rise superior to ill-fortune. "At thy first entrance upon thy estate," saith a wise man, "keep a low sail that thou mayest rise with honor; thou canst not decline without shame; he that begins where his father ends will generally end where his father began."

As full ears load and lay corn so does too much fortune bend and break the mind. It deserves to be considered, too, as another advantage, that affliction moves pity and reconciles our enemies; but prosperity provokes envy and loses us even our friends. Again, adversity is a desolate and abandoned state, and, as rats and mice forsake a tottering house, so do the generality of men forsake him who is cast down by adversity. As a consequence, he who has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others or with himself, and can not be expected to put forth full measure of his powers.

The patient conquest of difficulties which rise in the regular and legitimate channels of business and enterprise is not only essential in securing the ultimate prosperity which you seek, but it is requisite to prepare your mind for enjoying your prosperity. Every-where in human experience, as frequently as in nature, hardship is essential to ultimate success. That magnificent oak was detained twenty years in its upward growth while its roots took a great turn around a bowlder, by which the tree was anchored to withstand the storms of centuries. They who are eminently prosperous, or who achieve greatness or even notoriety in any pursuit, must expect to make enemies. Whoever becomes distinguished is sure to be a mark for the malicious spite of those who, not deserving success themselves, are galled by the merited triumph of the more worthy. Moreover, the opposition which originates in such despicable motives is sure to be of the most unscrupulous character, hesitating at no iniquity, descending to the shabbiest littleness. Opposition, if it is honest and manly, is not in itself undesirable. It is the whetstone by which a highly tempered nature is polished and sharpened. Uninterrupted prosperity shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.