Evening star., 1928-10-31

| tions? Perhaps Dumas explanation is
as good as any. He groups the reasons
for this half failure into three divt-
sionS-chance, i'll luck or natural defect
or impediment.
The genius of Alexandra Dumas was
| so large that his list of reasons for
failures takes on more than ordinary
interest. Whatever such great writer
touched was likely to have some truth
in it. Genius is not completely one
sided. Because man is by nature a
| fine story-teller Is no reason why he
cannot, upon occasion, be philosopher
as we'll
Dumas sees with unerring accuracy
| that in the last analysis there are and
| must always be two classes of human
beings in respect to complete success
| those who do go all the way and those
who succeed in going but halfway.
The latter do not go as far as they
would like to travel principally, he
believes, because chance is against
| them, or some sort of ill-luck (Which
in some cases amounts to the same
| thing or they are held back by some
natural defect or impediment.
1t is significant that he does not
state that this impediment Is always
confined to the victim. 1t may. one
may we'll believe, lie in some one else,
or in some condition or state of things
over which the person may not or
cannot rise.
The thoughts of youth are long, long
| thoughts, Longfellow said; they are
thoughts which fail to include many
real conditions, simply because the per-
son thinking them has not had enough
experience to realize that they exist.
Time mellows the average human
being, bringing him to realization
of much which he would not have
understood or even might have in
| dignantly denied as a young man.
Perhaps the best service which it
brings to most men is to put them in
possession of such a mature outlook
that they realize with Dumas that
only a limited number can be every
where successful, and that it is the fate
of most human beings to forever re-
main halfway upon the road toward
fulfillment of their hopes and desires.
Their thoughts are tempered by the
realization that many of those who
pier or better than they They see
everywhere marks of bad temper and
dissatisfaction, or hear of troubles in
the lives of those who have arrived" /"
| They come to believe, with Shake
| speare, in the true, abiding place of
content:
MY crown is in my heart, not on my
head;
Nor decked with diamonds or Indian
stones,
Nor to be seen; my crown is called
content"
This thought was the consolation of
the staggering D'Artagnan, who was
permitted, by reason of his natural dis
position, his inherent happiness which
kings and queens might have envied,
to forget the ingratitude of his betterS
and their unfulhlled promises.
Psychologists say that the greatest
sadness of poverty is not so much the
lack of money as the niggardly thought
which it induces: that if poor man
can Offset such thoughts, he will miss
the worst evil of being poor.
So, one may think, if the great ma
iority of those halfway on the road to-
ward fulfillment do not allow the
thoughts of their position to injurious
ly affect them. they will be quite as
well off, everything taken into consid-
Grafton, as If they had arrived"
Robert Louis Stevenson it was who
penned that glorious truth, that conso-
lation without sting, "It is better to
travel hopefully than to arrive" The
only man really to be pitied in this
world is the man without hone