The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1910-03-07
-TT1E FAMILY CIRCLE
The Tragedy of Success
I he


My thought today for the family cir
Ecle is that it's collective cor individual
happiness and success do not depent
upon achievements.
The worlds three greatest poets
Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, the
sublime trinity of intellect-all were
wretched men. Homer was blind and
sang his snatches OF undying song
from door to door in ancient Greece,
begging bread in return; Dante was
a wanderer over Italy, hungry most
of the time and without food for days;
Shakespeare was little above va
grant and in all of his life scarcely
had ore six-pence to rub against an
other.
The most successful authors were
abjectedly poor, The greatest ro-
nance ever penned, Cervantes don
Quixote," was written when its au-
thor had not one peso, and moreover
was on a bed of pain. The sublimest
allegUry of the English language is
"The Pilgrims Progress" Bunyan
twas travelling tinker who never
earned more than so cents a day in
his life; his great work, too, was writ
ten on the UNFINISHED papers that were
used to cork the bottles of milk
brought to his cell while he was a
prisoner in Bedford Jail, where he
was incarcerated on account of his
religious principles.
In Johnson's day nearly all the sue
cessful writer's were half-starved. One
day they would be going down Picca-
dilly in stove-pipe hats and patent
feathers and swallow-tail coats, the
next they would be lying in bed be-
cause their clothes were in pawn.
Goldsmith was starving in garnet,
when Johnson came in and rummag-
ing through an old drawer in the d.
lapidated room discovered the manu-
script of THE Vicar of Wakefield
which he sold for $50 and saved the
poor author from dying of cold and
hunger.
Many great inventors have made
their lives successful for the world
while struggling to make both ends
meet, and often could not do it, and
went down to the grave sad and dis
appointed men.
Columbus was a poor man. his
great discovery, though successful, did
not enrich him, and he died broken
achievement, that he had found new
world.
But had any of these men had
wealth they probably would have
been as badly off. Wealth cannot sat
isfy the soul.
A man dining with Rothschild, the
great banker said You must be
thoroughly happy man."
Happy? Me happy?" replied the
banker. Happy, when Just as | am
going to dine a man sends me a note,
saying: IF you don't send me five
hundred pounds before tomorrow
night / will blow your brains out
me happy?"
| VIM X. Vanderbilt, three hundred
times a millionaire, died in a fit of
apoplexy, brought on because he could
not come to an agreement with Rob-
ert Carrot about a railroad.
Stephen Girard said: Il live the
life of a galley slave; when l rise in
the morning my one effort is to work
so hard that l can sleep when it gets
to be night"
How many of the millionaires of our
day are happy, are contented? Many
of them would be glad to change
places with the humblest of their serv-
ants, and some of them, dearly as
they love money, and eagerly as they
pursue it, would give a kings ransom
for the strong limbs and robust health
of a common day laborer. What
good is a million dollars to a man who
can't eat a square" meal?
Life is a long fatigue" wrote Tai
leyrand on his eighty-first birthday.
Lord Eldon, another spoiled child of
fortune, said: "A few weeks and |
shall escape to the country and find
short resting place between veXation
and the grave"
The cares, the worry, the incessant
strain entailed upon man of millions
far more than counterbalance the
pleasure he derives from their posses
sion.
The indulgence of worldly pleasure
can never bring peace to the mind, nor