Part 16 (1/2)

The ideal is not, as many people seem to think, an impossible dream indulged in only by poets, and that has no active basis of reality.

Lazy people abuse this word, which to their minds allows them to indulge without shame in idle dreams that foster their indolence.

The timid drape it about themselves like a curtain, behind which they take refuge and in whose shadow they conceal themselves, thinking by so doing to keep the vanity which obsesses them from being wounded.

Devotees of false ideals clothe them too often with the tinsel of fond illusion, under which guise they make a pretense of wors.h.i.+ping them.

The true ideal, that which every man can carry in his heart, is something much more tangible and matter of fact.

For one it is worldly success.

For another renown and glory.

For men of action it is the end for which they strive.

The ideal which each man should cultivate and strive after need by no means be a narrow aim.

It is an aspiration of which the loftiness is in no way affected by the lowliness of the means employed to realize it.

This word has too often been misused and exaggerated in the effort to distort it from its philosophical meaning.

In every walk of life, no matter how humble, it is possible to follow an ideal.

It is not an aim, to speak exactly, but still less is it a dream. It is an aspiration toward something better that subordinates all our acts to this one dominant desire.

Every realization tends to the development of the ideal, which is increased in beauty by each partial attainment.

We have just said that the ideal of some men is the acquisition of a fortune. It might be supposed, therefore, that such people, once they have become rich, will abandon their aspirations for something more.

The man who has this idea is very much in the wrong.

The state of being permanently wealthy is one that opens new horizons, hitherto closed. The doing of good, charity, the desire to better the condition of those who still have to struggle, these will const.i.tute a higher and a no less attractive ideal.

This does not take into consideration the instinct, innate in every heart--and that the genius of the race has made a part of every one of us--the desire of progressing.

It is this desire that forms the ideal of fathers of families, building up the futures of their children, in whom they see not only their immediate successors, but those who are to continue their race, which they wish to be a strong and virile one, in obedience to the eternal desire for perpetuating themselves that haunts the hearts of men.

It is quite evident that each gain has no need of being complete to bear fruit. The thing to do is to multiply it, to make something more of it, and to take it home to ourselves, in order to achieve the ultimate result that is termed success.

The man of resolution appreciates this fact perfectly, rejoicing in every victory and taking each defeat as a means for gaining experience that he will be able to use to his advantage when the occasion arises.

The man of timidity, on the other hand, haunted by this desire for perfection, cut off by his very aloofness from all chance of learning the lesson of events, will be so thoroughly discouraged at the first check, that he will draw back from any similar experience, preferring to take refuge in puerile grumbling against the contrariety of things in general.

This att.i.tude of mind can not outlast a few minutes of sensible reflection.

We wish to convey by the use of this term the idea of a process of thought quite free from those vague dreams which are the sure indications of feebleness, reveries in which things appear to us in a guise which is by no means that which they really possess.

The main characteristic of this state of mind is to exaggerate one's disappointments while ignoring one's moments of happiness.

It approximates very closely to the old fable of the crumpled rose-leaf breaking the rest of the sybarite on his couch of silk.