He may go on deceiving himself with
the fiction of to-morrow, building cas
tles in the air, telling himself what he
will do to make life pleasant and prof
itable, but all the time he is slowly
losing even the desire to enlarge his
horizon.
The Unfortunate Rich Man.
F. Hopkinson Smith's picture of this
type of man is not overdrawn. "I do
not know." be says, "a more melan
choly example of the human race than
what is known as the highly success
ful American business man; the sort
of man who 'opens his daily life with
his office key and closes it with a let
ter for the late mail. He has, of course,
secared what nine-tenths of the young
men of the country wish they had
business success, a large amount of se
curities, ample provision for his family
and a certain power in the commercial
world. If he has escaped the pitfalls
and thus saved his character, be has
certainly incurred the envy of a large
portion of his fellow men differently
situated. To regain the good feeling
of his fellows he has one thing left,
and that is to become a philanthropist.
In doing this he can recover a certain
portion of the respect of his fellow hu
man beings which is worth having, but,
as far as he is concerned, there is no
other course left for him in life except
either to keep on in the same treadmill.
