"wealth." To seek a purely selfish and material success is to defeat the
very purpose of one's existence--"life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." In the very conquest for this baser type a man blights his
sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect
for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his
happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has
nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his
senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we
are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us
in dollars and cents, we are not on the road leading to success. For
success does not consist in the acquisition of the material, so much as in
a mental discipline that seeks objectively to subordinate intrinsic value.

We must confess, however, that the age in which we live is one of brick
and mortar; that materialism and not aestheticism reigns over us. The
book-keeper's pen has usurped the office of the artist's brush and the
carpenter's chisel that of the sculptor. Intrinsic worth and
dividend-paying value holds sway, and even the gift-horse is looked in the
mouth while the priceless motive that prompted its giving is forgotten.

The commercial spirit which pervades the atmosphere of modern times is
disintegrating the sublimer side of human life. The gilded god of
materialism is lavishing its blessings in the realm of science and
invention and commercial enterprise, at the expense of aestheticism, till
to-day there are thousands of artisans to every artist. We have an
abundance of stone masons, but few Phidiases or Angelos; hundreds of organ
grinders, but few Beethovens or Webers or Bachs; a full quota of men
engrossed in the cold calculus of business, but a scarcity of Homers or
Dantes or Virgils.