When I began to pen these wandering confessions--or whatever they may properly be called--it was with the rather hazy purpose of endeavoring to ascertain why it was that I, universally conceded to be a successful man, was not happy. As I reread what I have written I realize that, instead of being a successful man in any way, I am an abject failure. The preceding pages need no comment. The facts speak for themselves. I had everything in my favor at the start. I had youth, health, natural ability, a good wife, friends and opportunity; but I blindly accepted the standards of the men I saw about me and devoted my energies to the achievement of the single object that was theirs--the getting of money. Thirty years have gone by. I have been a leader in the race and I have secured a prize. But at what cost? I am old--a bundle of undesirable habits; my health is impaired; my wife has become a frivolous and extravagant woman; I have no real friends: my children are strangers to me, and I have no home. I have no interest in my family, my social acquaintances, or in the affairs of the city or nation. I take no sincere pleasure in art or books or outdoor life. The only genuine satisfaction that is mine is in the first fifteen-minutes' flush after my afternoon cocktail and the preliminary course or two of my dinner. I have nothing to look forward to. No matter how much money I make, there is no use to which I can put it that will increase my happiness. From a material standpoint I have achieved everything I can possibly desire. No king or emperor ever approximated the actual luxury of my daily life. No one ever accomplished more apparent work with less actual personal effort. I am a master at the exploitation of intellectual labor. I have motors, saddle-horses, and a beautiful summer cottage at a cool and fashionable resort. I travel abroad when the spirit moves me; I entertain lavishly and am entertained in return; I smoke the costliest cigars; I have a reputation at the bar, and I have an established income large enough to sustain at least sixty intelligent people and their families in moderate comfort. This must be true, for on the one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month I pay my chauffeur he supports a wife and two children, sends them to school and on a three-months' vacation into the country during the summer. And, instead of all these things giving me any satisfaction, I am miserable and discontented. The fact that I now realize the selfishness of my life led me to-day to resolve to do something for others--and this resolve had an unexpected and surprising consequence. Heretofore I had been engaged in an introspective study of my own attitude toward my fellows. I had not sought the evidence of outside parties. What has just occurred has opened my eyes to the fact that others have not been nearly so blind as I have been myself.