His soul is brave, as becomes the soul porphyrogenetic. But, as it is also a sensitive soul, how it is wrung!
The trouble with our young Jones is that he was premature--not in thought, but in showing his thoughts. Only premature. The madness that ravaged him is in the plutocratic air. Many eyes are rolling, many fingers are twitching in the premonitory symptoms of the malady. A few years at our plutocracy’s present rate of progress, and Jones will be recognized as a martyr. “Jones was born a little too soon. Jones came to a climax a little before the season,” the dandies will say.
June is the time for roses. Jones came in April. Poor Jones! Poor April rose!
Such is the mode of the “born success”; now for the young man who is born with brains and appetites and ambitions only. He is determined to achieve a plutocratic success; looks about him for the road that leads to palaces, equipages, yachts--all that gives one title to a seat at the table of honor at this banquet of extravagant luxury. He sees at once that to become a multi-millionaire he must use his brains to force or to cajole the multi-millionaires to make him one of them.
He must pattern after those who are far on the way to achieving his kind of success: this corporation lawyer earning his hundred thousand or more a year as the legal servant of rich men; that railway president with his fifty thousand a year and perquisites, earned as the commercial servant of rich men; that manager getting a salary of one hundred and twenty-five thousand as a seeker of safe investments for surplus millions of income--again a servant of rich men; that bank president with salary and opportunities together netting him upward of two hundred thousand a year--again a servant of the rich; that broker who put by half a million last year as a result of his skill and assiduity in the service of rich operators; that doctor who made seventy-five thousand in fees and two hundred thousand in Wall Street last year on “tips” from grateful patients--again the rewards of service to the rich.
Our young candidate for success has brains to sell; he wants customers with money. He hopes ultimately to sell these brains at a very high price; he wants customers with lots of money, millions of money, in which he may presently share largely. He must ingratiate himself with the rich; must go where they are to be found, not only in business hours, but also in hours of relaxation. He must not only work hard; he must also play hard and high--must lead the life of the rich as far as possible. His air, his dress, his style of living, all must be such that he will be regarded as rich and progressive. To drudge and to economize and to keep away from the extravagance downtown and up will mean a small success, or at best one that will not lead to the lofty height of fashion and social position upon which he has fixed his eyes.