Success

g the magnificent expression of others in the same work and company their own feeble effort with the fuller perfect one, they have sunk down in despair and given up all effort, when all that was needed was a little longer practice and steadfast application; keeping what they had, and without hateful comparison, using the expression of those who were their masters as examples to inspire them, instead of becoming discouraged and giving up all effort. Hateful comparisons have become the cankering worm in the heart of the finest tree of life, and it 54 works its way through the most minute things and where we would least expect. There are many stories one could tell of it, but here is a plain case of failure through hateful comparison: A lady wanted me to dine with her. She said, "I want to have a long talk with you and I want you to tell me just what is the matter with me. I am not happy, we are not as successful as we should be, and my husband seems discouraged, and I seem to annoy him more than I comfort him, and yet I do not know just where we are slipping off the line, but I know we are slipping." I dined with this lady and her husband and this is what I found: The husband was a commercial traveller, very successful, clearing a comfortable yearly salary; they had been in every country and at last had selected a certain city for their permanent location, and decided to build a little house, just to have an abiding place to which they could repair for rest during his vacations, and where the wife could remain while he was away on short trips. It all seemed right and the most sensible thing to do and I was the first guest in the new little house. The house was a perfect gem in architecture and all the appointments were perfect and I exclaimed with delight at the beauty and simplicity. As soon as we were alone together the wife said, "Now come and see all of my new house." Then and there she began to reveal the canker at the heart of her rose-tree of life. Comparisons hateful, small, belittling comparisons! She began at the hall; the rug had to be excused it was not good enough, but all that she could have then, but, oh, there was a rug she wanted and one of her friends had so and so. The beautiful rug on her own floor was lost in her senseless regret of comparison of what she wanted and had not. Every room in her house came in for the same hateful comparison the pretty curtains in one room were valueless because they were not some other kind of lac