SUCCESS AND COURAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 182, 4 August 1930, Page 6

SUCCESS AND COURAGE.

The Goddess of Fame distributes her gifts witK a left-handed justice. She is influenced by the voice of the people, because on those whom the world acclaims she bestows her crown, not on those who have earned it.

They who have sprung into prominence at a single bound, through the doing of some deed of greatness, have fame, as it were, thrust upon them. It is theirs willy-nilly. For the period taken to accomplish their deed they know in a, concentrated form all the anxieties and worry which those mortals who never rise above the cbmmonplace know every day, in a lesser degree. All the mental, and to a lesser extent, all the physical strain of many years are packed into that short time. They have ever-present with them the fear of death, and, greater still, the fear of failure. They risk all to gain the prize. But underlying all there is the compensating, uplifting hope of attainment. In the event of glorious success all they have suffered in a material way will be more than balanced by the ovation they will receive; and that ovation will be material, which they, as humans, will be able to recognise. For that little time of concentrated endeavour they have the right to dwell on Olympus.

But for those whose daily path leads through the flat, barren country of the commonplace, whose life is an -unvaried succession of the same thing, who know the worry and the continual canker of little things, there is no such hope of attainment, or of recognition. What'is usual for them to do they perform because there is nothing else they can do. Some affirm that the vidual makes hie circumstances, but these humbler folk would query that. For them there is no knowledge that at the end of the race there is some looked-for prize. Only the large minority of people are content to suffer the lash in this world for the sake of a reward to come, and fewer still are philosophers enough to be content in the knowledge that "the greatest thing in life is not to win the game but to play a bad hand well." It has been said that the famous ones know success in a material way which they can understand. It is intoxicating wine of which they drink deeply in the knowledge that their task was hard. Those who tread the commonplace, the middle way, have the courage which allows a life to be lived with no thought of cheering crowd? to mark success, or of heroic death in the event I of failure. They do not even think of these things. They do not call themselves courageous. They do not even envy those who come to success! Tn fact, it is they who form the cheering crowds! They do not seek to hide from others by a cynicism the knowledge that they tread the verv ordinary way. In the empty terms of the man who has failed they, do not try to moralise on the futility of material success.

Let it be said finally that the man. or wpman, particularly the woman, whose life is just lived from day to day is possessed of a courage infinitely beyond that of the ones the world acclaims, and that* the accompaniment of everyday things well done is incomparably superior to that of cheering crowds and the laurel wreath. ■