The Washington herald., 1916-04-05

But is through the the success lovers Sc
cure most Of their information. They have rare
faculty for cleaning reports about the successful
and the unsuccessful. 1t takes them only short
time to learn of any turn of fortune. 1t
may cause them to make complete change of
attitude toward this person or that
One whom they may have ignored before will
perhaps become an object of socitude and flat
terry.
One whom they may have been persistently
honorng may lose all interest in their sight
They may even forget that he exists.
Here again success lovers show that they are
not very wise. For their very keenness ought to
make them alive to the sudden changes of fortune
There is no knowing when the failure of TODAY
may become the success of tomorrow. And to-
morrow the of today may prove to be-
quite unexpectedly, a bankrupt in the power to
share his perquistes
One snub, however, may completely destroy
the chance of all future favor
But success lovers apparently never consider
the future. All they care for is the present They
bask in the sunshine wherever they find it.
If they think about the matter at all, perhaps
they consciously place their whole reliance on
their power to win favor by flattery and cajolery
Success lovers both the sustainers and the
destroyers of the enjoyment of success They
add to the cynicism of the world and the pessi-
mism But they do one unquestionable service
They serve as warnings to those who, after a
struggle, achieve prosperity. Warnings against
taking success too seriously, against vanity and
pride.
But these warnings are often unhecded
One would fancy that those who in failure
suffer from the cruelty of the success lovers
would reaching success themselves, be armed
against fattery. But their experience NAV
achieve the opposite effect. The man of sudden
success may, through the very bitterness he has
known in failure, enjoy adulation all the more
The very fact that it is nsincere, that at any mo-
ment an i'll turn of FORTUNE may destroy it, makes
it all the more precious Here is an ignoble en-
joyment. 1t shows the part of him who in
dulges in it readiness to take the superior atti-
On the other hand those who have suffered
through failure may turn success into noble uses
Though they may perceive the insinccrity Of the
success lovers thev NAV be tolerant enough TO
human weakness And those who while they
were still failures treated them with consideration
they may pour the sunshine of their favor Per
haps in their success they will realize that there
is one thing that seems almost as bad as flatterv
and that is the fear of success which comes both
from envy and jealousy, we'll from the reali-
zation of the cruelty that successful people so
often practice.
There those who become afraid of their
friends just as the friends grow successful
Instead OF being kinder kind they are less
kind. They usually think of themselves in the
new relation established by success as forced into
an inferior position toward the friends with whom
they were once equal footing. Often sue
cessful people, who keep their heads in success,
suffer from this failure of their friends to trust
them, to believe that they remain as they were
before.
After all, to most human beings, success is, in
many ways, as trying failure. 1t brings all
kinds of temptations and unworthy feelings and
attitudes of mind exactly as failure does. Those
indeed, who can endure success fewer than
those who can endure failure.
Marked change of fortune means the introduc-
ton into life of perils, new tests Only
those can meet these tests and perils who under
all circumstances possess serene mind and just
consciousness of their true relation to their fell
low beings, the relation that enables them to
achieve happiness under all circumstances.