The Pascagoula democrat-star. (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1878-1920, 1893-07-28

What is Success, Anyhow?
Creole, in Memphis Appeal-Avalanche
l spent last night in the pottcrs'
field that place so sad and solemn in
its suggcstlveness, where can be found
the unmarked graves of unknown
men who died away from home, away
from mother and friends, slipping in
to the shadows Of eternity unwept,
unhonorel by human tears. And
what a silent and melancholy and
desolate place it is. No human voice
ever breaks the stiffness that hoyers
about this lonely spot unless it is the
voice of the grave-digger or the coarse
and half mutlicd tone Of the under
taker as he lifts a plain wooden box
from the ambulance and then places it
in the volceless tomb. Clod after
clod falls upon the coffin and finally
the last duty to the dead has been
performed and there the poor creature
sleeps with only a wooden slab to
mark the grave, and that in time to
be worn away by the passing years.
And not man sleeping in this place
ever thought Of such a fate. ! some
times think this thing Of hope is the
very best argument in favor of the
Christian doctrine, for it'so often
keeps us from foreseeing the sad end
towards which an inevitable destiny
tends. What if every man could
know his own future with all its sad
ness and all its disappolntments
Life would not be worth its troubles
to even the most fortunate. This is
no fatalistic theory, but it is the true
conclusion which must be reached by
any man who depends only upon a
practical philosophy and an irreslsti-
BILE logic for the facts governing hui
man existence. l sometimes try to
convince myself that it is wrong to
think that disappointment in life is
certain, but reason will not allow it.
While wandering among the weeds
that clamor about the graves of the
pauper dead I recalled this verse in
viii Hubbard Kernan's book
What matters tito you'and me-
Insensate there in immortal calm
Whether our funerel dirge shall be
A reptiles hiss or n nations psalm
And | wondered If the pauper dead
were conscious of the ignominy that
lowered about their graves : if they
knew the scorn flung at them by the
prosperous or feel a sense of shame
for their life. The nasty. painting
lizard finds refuge in the shadows Of
the grave slab, and the snake hisse.
its way across the sunken bosom O
the sepulcher, but what does thai
matter to the sleeping pauper? Scorr
and ignominy cannot disturb thu
calm, whether it is immortal or not
/ Nor can the painting lizard or th'
Kissing snake break the beautiful
| peace thafis eternally resting abou
these graves. / do not know whethe
the wrstched death Of paupers i
worse than the death Of the mos
fortunate OF men. Whendeath comes
men, imagine, forget their wealth
land all their luck and prestige an,
turn to the one great problem, Life
And one man thinks about as muc1
of life as any other man, or IL he doe
not he kills himself. So every paupe
in potter's field died the death tina
every man must die, with the diffeI
ence that they wcre perhaps, ava
|, from home. Life is life, and one mar
loves it as much as another. 1t is a
dear to the pauper as 1t Is to a Var
derbilt or a Gould, as dear to Il plt
ban as it is to a prince. And the di,
appointments Of life wranKlcd a
! strongly in the bosom Of every paupc
in potter's field as lit ever did in til
bosom of the greatest Of men. TIL
trouble with us all is that we ncve
get what we want; we never realiz
the model of perfection that Is cor
stantly before us in life. We all hay
hopes and desires, and we all hay
disappolntments, and l do not Cal
) whether man aspires to the positio
OF janitor, or to the perfection Of J,
sus, In either case he never realize
his model Of perfection and all dl
just as the paupers in pottcr's hcl
have died.
What Is success, anyhow? Dcalln
with the question In the abstract,
! would say that 1t was merely the co,
sequence or result Of an undertaking
put what IL the depnAr menninu (