ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD.

Not exactly the sort of thing for an idle fellow to think about, is
it? But outsiders, you know, often see most of the game; and sitting
in my arbor by the wayside, smoking my hookah of contentment and
eating the sweet lotus-leaves of indolence, I can look out musingly
upon the whirling throng that rolls and tumbles past me on the great
high-road of life.

Never-ending is the wild procession. Day and night you can hear the
quick tramp of the myriad feet--some running, some walking, some
halting and lame; but all hastening, all eager in the feverish race,
all straining life and limb and heart and soul to reach the
ever-receding horizon of success.

Mark them as they surge along--men and women, old and young, gentle
and simple, fair and foul, rich and poor, merry and sad--all hurrying,
bustling, scrambling. The strong pushing aside the weak, the cunning
creeping past the foolish; those behind elbowing those before; those
in front kicking, as they run, at those behind. Look close and see
the flitting show. Here is an old man panting for breath, and there a
timid maiden driven by a hard and sharp-faced matron; here is a
studious youth, reading "How to Get On in the World" and letting
everybody pass him as he stumbles along with his eyes on his book;
here is a bored-looking man, with a fashionably dressed woman jogging
his elbow; here a boy gazing wistfully back at the sunny village that
he never again will see; here, with a firm and easy step, strides a
broad-shouldered man; and here, with stealthy tread, a thin-faced,
stooping fellow dodges and shuffles upon his way; here, with gaze
fixed always on the ground, an artful rogue carefully works his way
from side to side of the road and thinks he is going forward; and here
a youth with a noble face stands, hesitating as he looks from the
distant goal to the mud beneath his feet.

And now into sight comes a fair girl, with her dainty face growing
more wrinkled at every step, and now a care-worn man, and now a
hopeful lad.

A motley throng--a motley throng! Prince and beggar, sinner and
saint, butcher and baker and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors,
and plowboys and sailors--all jostling along together. Here the
counsel in his wig and gown, and here the old Jew clothes-man under
his dingy tiara; here the soldier in his scarlet, and here the
undertaker's mute in streaming hat-band and worn cotton gloves; here
the musty scholar fumbling his faded leaves, and here the scented
actor dangling his showy seals. Here the glib politician crying his
legislative panaceas, and here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack holding
aloft his quack cures for human ills. Here the sleek capitalist and
there the sinewy laborer; here the man of science and here the
shoe-back; here the poet and here the water-rate collector; here the
cabinet minister and there the ballet-dancer. Here a red-nosed
publican shouting the praises of his vats and there a temperance
lecturer at 50 pounds a night; here a judge and there a swindler; here
a priest and there a gambler. Here a jeweled duchess, smiling and
gracious; here a thin lodging-house keeper, irritable with cooking;
and here a wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry in paint and finery.

Cheek by cheek they struggle onward. Screaming, cursing, and praying,
laughing, singing, and moaning, they rush past side by side. Their
speed never slackens, the race never ends. There is no wayside rest
for them, no halt by cooling fountains, no pause beneath green shades.
On, on, on--on through the heat and the crowd and the dust--on, or
they will be trampled down and lost--on, with throbbing brain and
tottering limbs--on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow
blurred, and a gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up
another space.

And yet, in spite of the killing pace and the stony track, who but the
sluggard or the dolt can hold aloof from the course? Who--like the
belated traveler that stands watching fairy revels till he snatches
and drains the goblin cup and springs into the whirling circle--can
view the mad tumult and not be drawn into its midst? Not I, for one.
I confess to the wayside arbor, the pipe of contentment, and the
lotus-leaves being altogether unsuitable metaphors. They sounded very
nice and philosophical, but I'm afraid I am not the sort of person to
sit in arbors smoking pipes when there is any fun going on outside. I
think I more resemble the Irishman who, seeing a crowd collecting,
sent his little girl out to ask if there was going to be a row
--"'Cos, if so, father would like to be in it."

I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. I like to hear of
people getting on in it--battling their way bravely and fairly--that
is, not slipping through by luck or trickery. It stirs one's old
Saxon fighting blood like the tales of "knights who fought 'gainst
fearful odds" that thrilled us in our school-boy days.

And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds, too.
There are giants and dragons in this nineteenth century, and the
golden casket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in
the story-books. There, Algernon takes one long, last look at the
ancestral hall, dashes the tear-drop from his eye, and goes off--to
return in three years' time, rolling in riches. The authors do not
tell us "how it's done," which is a pity, for it would surely prove
exciting.

But then not one novelist in a thousand ever does tell us the real
story of their hero. They linger for a dozen pages over a tea-party,
but sum up a life's history with "he had become one of our merchant
princes," or "he was now a great artist, with the world at his feet."
Why, there is more real life in one of Gilbert's patter-songs than in
half the biographical novels ever written. He relates to us all the
various steps by which his office-boy rose to be the "ruler of the
queen's navee," and explains to us how the briefless barrister managed
to become a great and good judge, "ready to try this breach of promise
of marriage." It is in the petty details, not in the great results,
that the interest of existence lies.

What we really want is a novel showing us all the hidden under-current
of an ambitious man's career--his struggles, and failures, and hopes,
his disappointments and victories. It would be an immense success. I
am sure the wooing of Fortune would prove quite as interesting a tale
as the wooing of any flesh-and-blood maiden, though, by the way, it
would read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, as the ancients
painted her, very like a woman--not quite so unreasonable and
inconsistent, but nearly so--and the pursuit is much the same in one
case as in the other. Ben Jonson's couplet--

"Court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you"--

puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never thoroughly cares for her
lover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you
have snapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel
that she begins to smile upon you.

But by that time you do not much care whether she smiles or frowns.
Why could she not have smiled when her smiles would have filled you
with ecstasy? Everything comes too late in this world.

Good people say that it is quite right and proper that it should be
so, and that it proves ambition is wicked.

Bosh! Good people are altogether wrong. (They always are, in my
opinion. We never agree on any single point.) What would the world
do without ambitious people, I should like to know? Why, it would be
as flabby as a Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the leaven
which raises it into wholesome bread. Without ambitious people the
world would never get up. They are busybodies who are about early in
the morning, hammering, shouting, and rattling the fire-irons, and
rendering it generally impossible for the rest of the house to remain
in bed.

Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth! The men wrong who, with bent back
and sweating brow, cut the smooth road over which humanity marches
forward from generation to generation! Men wrong for using the
talents that their Master has intrusted to them--for toiling while
others play!

Of course they are seeking their reward. Man is not given that
godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in
working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound
together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he
strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. The stream in
struggling onward turns the mill-wheel; the coral insect, fashioning
its tiny cell, joins continents to one another; and the ambitious man,
building a pedestal for himself, leaves a monument to posterity.
Alexander and Caesar fought for their own ends, but in doing so they
put a belt of civilization half round the earth. Stephenson, to win a
fortune, invented the steam-engine; and Shakespeare wrote his plays in
order to keep a comfortable home for Mrs. Shakespeare and the little
Shakespeares.

Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They
form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted
against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent,
audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not
a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.
But do not, for goodness' sake, let them go strutting about, as they
are so fond of doing, crying out that they are the true models for the
whole species. Why, they are the deadheads, the drones in the great
hive, the street crowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are
working.

And let them not imagine, either--as they are also fond of doing--that
they are very wise and philosophical and that it is a very artful
thing to be contented. It may be true that "a contented mind is happy
anywhere," but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is that
both are put anywhere and are treated anyhow. "Oh, you need not
bother about him," is what is said; "he is very contented as he is,
and it would be a pity to disturb him." And so your contented party
is passed over and the discontented man gets his place.

If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble
with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal.
Because if you don't you won't get any. In this world it is necessary
to adopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action for
damages, and to demand ten times more than you are ready to accept.
If you can feel satisfied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a
thousand; if you start by suggesting a hundred you will only get ten.

It was by not following this simple plan that poor Jean Jacques
Rousseau came to such grief. He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss
at living in an orchard with an amiable woman and a cow, and he never
attained even that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the woman
was not amiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was no
cow. Now, if he had made up his mind for a large country estate, a
houseful of angels, and a cattle-show, he might have lived to possess
his kitchen garden and one head of live-stock, and even possibly have
come across that _rara-avis_--a really amiable woman.

What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be for contented people!
How heavy the time must hang upon their hands, and what on earth do
they occupy their thoughts with, supposing that they have any?
Reading the paper and smoking seems to be the intellectual food of the
majority of them, to which the more energetic add playing the flute
and talking about the affairs of the next-door neighbor.

They never knew the excitement of expectation nor the stern delight of
accomplished effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has
objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man life is a
brilliant game--a game that calls forth all his tact and energy and
nerve--a game to be won, in the long run, by the quick eye and the
steady hand, and yet having sufficient chance about its working out to
give it all the glorious zest of uncertainty. He exults in it as the
strong swimmer in the heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle,
the soldier in the battle.

And if he be defeated he wins the grim joy of fighting; if he lose the
race, he, at least, has had a run. Better to work and fail than to
sleep one's life away.

So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen! walk
up, boys and girls! Show your skill and try your strength; brave your
luck and prove your pluck. Walk up! The show is never closed and the
game is always going. The only genuine sport in all the fair,
gentlemen--highly respectable and strictly moral--patronized by the
nobility, clergy, and gentry. Established in the year one, gentlemen,
and been flourishing ever since--walk up! Walk up, ladies and
gentlemen, and take a hand. There are prizes for all and all can
play. There is gold for the man and fame for the boy; rank for the
maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walk up, ladies and gentlemen,
walk up!--all prizes and no blanks; for some few win, and as to the
rest, why--

"The rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquished gain."