THE FUNERAL OF A FAILURE.
By A. J. Waterhouse
[By A. J. Waterhouse, in the Examiner.] I ATTENDED the funeral of a Failure the other day. At least the world practically united in calling him a failure, and why should mine be well-nigh the sole voice that is heard in dissent? Of course he was a failure; the world ought to know. He had journeyed along his life-path, this Failure, until he had reached the place where the way is lost in the mists, and yet he had journeyed on. And then it had come to pass that men had asked concerning him that question which the world whispers by every coffin, "What was he worth?" and other men had answered, "Not a cent." And if the fact so announced does not prove that he was a failure—but of course it does prove it; else why does the world ask, "What was he worth?" instead of, "What good did he do?" or, "Who was the happier because he lived?" It merely chanced that I was present at the Failure's funeral. Of course, as a matter of fact, I can not afford to devote much time to the obsequies of men who were worth "not a cent." I am like the rest of you in that respect; it is so much more satisfactory to be part of the cortege that accompanies the unsouled clay of one who accumulated millions and left every cent of them behind. It was a very simple ceremony, as is quite fitting, of course, when the bones of a failure are stowed away. There were but two carriages besides the one in which the Failure took his last ride, and the dearth of floral emblems was noticeable. As for the officiating clergyman, I quite admired him. He must have known of course that the world was whispering, "Not a cent," and yet he really appeared to believe that the late deceased was an estimable character. And there was one clothed in black, who knelt beside the coffin, and sobbed as tho' her heart would break—wept thus for a failure, you understand. And there were children, three of them, who also cried because their father's arm of love no more would be about them. Queer conduct, this, by the pulseless clay of a failure; now, was it not? And I talked with one man—a very commonplace person he was, believe me—who said:— "He was one of God's noblemen; that's what he was. I never knew him to turn anybody down when he could do him a favor." But, then, as I have said, the one who spoke these words was a very, very commonplace person, indeed, and I do not suppose that he had more than the glimmering of a perception of the splendor of that success that accumulates and leaves millions to the end that devoted heirs may contest the will. I am free to say, altho the confession well may mark me as a weak man, with no particular scope of intellect, that I left that simple funeral service with a half-formed suspicion that the world does not display highest wisdom in the question it whispers by its dead. Probably I will recover from this feeling as soon as the first emotion born of that scene has died away. Naturally I hope so, for I earnestly desire to be as wise as the rest of you who ask of the dead, only, "What was he worth?" It seems pitiable to be behind our "Christian civilization" in recognition of the supreme test of living; it appears so foolish to entertain even a half suspicion that character should count more than dollars in the great mysterious game of life. But, some way, as I looked on the little group that wept beside the coffin of Failure, I could but wonder with what "tongues of men and angels" I might speak to convince them that the one that slept was not a success in life. And I am assured that there are no tongues of men to accomplish such a result, and the tongues of angels must speak in quite another way.