FAILURE AND SUCCESS: A PROLOGUE

FAILURE and Success passed away from Earth, and found themselves in a Foreign Land. Success still wore her laurel-wreath which she had won on Earth. There was a look of ease about her whole appearance; and there was a smile of pleasure and satisfaction on her face, as though she knew she had done well and had deserved her honours.

Failure’s head was bowed: no laurel-wreath encircled it. Her face was wan, and pain-engraven. She had once been beautiful and hopeful, but she had long since lost both hope and beauty. They stood together, these two, waiting for an audience with the Sovereign of the Foreign Land. An old grey-haired man came to them and asked their names.

“I am Success,” said Success, advancing a step forward, and smiling at him, and pointing to her laurel-wreath.

He shook his head.

“Ah,” he said, “do not be too confident. Very often things go by opposites in this land. What you call Success, we often call Failure; what you call Failure, we call Success. Do you see those two men waiting there? The one nearer to us was thought to be a good man in your world; the other was generally accounted bad. But here we call the bad man good, and the good man bad. That seems strange to you. Well then, look yonder. You considered that statesman to be sincere; but we say he was insincere. We chose as our poet-laureate a man at whom your world scoffed. Ay, and those flowers yonder: for us they have a fragrant charm; we love to see them near us. But you do not even take the trouble to pluck them from the hedges where they grow in rich profusion. So, you see, what we value as a treasure, you do not value at all.”

Then he turned to Failure.

“And your name?” he asked kindly, though indeed he must have known it.

“I am Failure,” she said sadly.

He took her by the hand.

“Come, now, Success,” he said to her: “let me lead you into the Presence-Chamber.”

Then she who had been called Failure, and was now called Success, lifted up her bowed head, and raised her weary frame, and smiled at the music of her new name. And with that smile she regained her beauty and her hope. And hope having come back to her, all her strength returned.

“But what of her,” she asked regretfully of the old grey-haired man; “must she be left?”

“She will learn,” the old man whispered. “She is learning already. Come, now: we must not linger.”

So she of the new name passed into the Presence-Chamber.

But the Sovereign said:

“The world needs you, dear and honoured worker. You know your real name: do not heed what the world may call you. Go back and work, but take with you this time unconquerable hope.”

So she went back and worked, taking with her unconquerable hope, and the sweet remembrance of the Sovereign’s words, and the gracious music of her Real Name.