Chapter II.
Success and Happiness are for You
If a man thinks sickness, poverty, and misfortune, he will meet them and claim them all eventually as his own. But he will not acknowledge the close relationship—he will deny his own children and declare they were sent to him by an evil fate.
Poverty is the hell of which most modem Englishmen are most afraid. —Carlyle.
Poverty is the open-mouthed hell which yawns beneath civilization. —Henry George.
Wealth is created mentally first.
The stream of plenty will not flow toward the stingy, parsimonious, doubting thought.
Holding the poverty thought keeps one in touch with poverty producing conditions.
No man has a right, unless he cannot help himself, to remain where he will be constantly subjected to the cramping, ambition blighting influences and great temptations of poverty. His self-respect demands that he should get out of such an environment. It is his duty to put himself in a position of dignity and independence, where he will not be liable at any moment to be a burden to his friends in case of sickness or other emergencies, or where those depending on him may suffer.
It is the poverty attitude, the narrowness of our thought that has limited us. If we had larger and grander conceptions of life, of our birthright; if, instead of whining, crawling, grumbling, sneaking and apologizing, we were to stand erect and claim our kingship, demand our rich inheritance, the inheritance which is an abundance of all that is good and beautiful and true, we should live far completer, fuller lives. We should not be so poverty-stricken but for the narrowness of our faith, the meanness of our conception of our birthright. There are plenty of evidences in man’s construction and environment that he was made for infinitely grander and superber things than even the most fortunate of men now possess and enjoy.
Almost every wealthy man in this country will tell you that his greatest satisfaction and happiest days were when he was emerging from poverty into a competency; when he first felt the tonic from the swelling of his small savings towards the stream of fortune, and knew that want would no longer dog his steps. It was then he began to see ahead of him leisure, self-development, self-culture, or perhaps study and travel, and to feel that those whom he loved would be lifted from the clutches of poverty. Comforts were taking the place of stern necessities and blunting drudgery, and he realized that he had the power to lift himself above himself, that henceforth he would be of consequence in the world; that he might have pictures and music and books, luxuries for his home, and that his children might not have to struggle quite as hard for an education as he had. Then he first felt the power to give them and others a little start in the world; felt the tonic of growth, the little circle about him expanding into a larger sphere, broadening into a wider horizon.
There are plenty of evidences that we were made for grand things, sublime things; for abundance and not for poverty.Lack and want do not fit man’s divine nature. The trouble with us is that we do not have half enough faith in the good that is in store for us. We do not dare fling out our whole soul’s desire, to follow the leading of our divine hunger and ask without stint for the abundance that is our birthright. We ask little things, and we expect little things, pinching our desires and limiting our supply. Not daring to ask to the full of our soul’s desire, we do not open our minds sufficiently to allow a great inflow of good things. Our mentality is so restricted, our self-expression so repressed, that we think in terms of stinginess and limitat
