The Race for Wealth Author:J. H. Riddell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: my value out of you yet. But now, come along, and let me introduce yon to my wife and children;" and saying this, Mr. Perkins led the way out of his office and a... more »cross the yard into the house, which was for a time to be Lawrence Barbour's home. CHAPTER III. At Borne. Taken as a whole, Mr. Perkins' career had not been an astonishingly prosperous one. He had not done ill — but neither, on the other hand, had he done well. Success is comparative, consequently men's views of it are different. Some are satisfied with a very small measure, others deem their object still unattained even when the bushel is full and running over. Success to one is a living of five hundred a year, with a pretty church to preach in, pleasant society near at hand, no poor, and a good house; to another, it is a fair salary, a semi-detached villa, a strip of garden containing a piece of grass about the size of a table-cloth, a piano purchased by instalments, standing behind the door in the front parlour, a suite of walnut wood furniture covered with green rep, a dining-table, a set of spirit-decanters, and a cruet-frame, with various other articles too numerous to mention dispersed about the suburban mansion. To a third, success is compassed when he has got his sons out in the world, and his daughters married or engaged. Up to that point there may have been astruggle, but for the future he sees his way plain, and binds the laurels of victory round his brow; while to a fourth nothing short of a title seems satisfactory, nothing under a patent of nobility worth striving for. Success is what we make it for ourselves. The result of the social game, whether gain or loss, must depend, not on the opinions of others, but upon the magnitude of the stake that we have placed upon the board: and, theref...« less