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REVIEW
THE
flUSIC TIRADE
VOL. LV. N o . 22
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, Nov. 30,1912
S SINGL
INGLE COPIES.
10 CENTS.
M.OO°?ER S YEAR:
Ideals Are Never Stationary
T
HERE are few of us indeed who arrive at the ideal position which we have mentally fixed for
ourselves, but when we do we are not satisfied and pass on to something further without halting
long enough to enjoy the perspective. Is this condition not infrequently due to the fact that
our ideals themselves are never stationary?
A case to illustrate my point: I know a man who years ago occupied a very humble position. He
told me at that time that he hoped to be able some day to indulge his art instincts to the extent of
purchasing two or three good pictures, but he said that he never expected to reach even that point, that
his field was too limited, and his possibilities restricted in such a manner that he never hoped to gratify
his tastes along those expensive lines.
That was twenty-five years ago. He has to-day a whole gallery filled with rare paintings, and I
question whether he spends ten minutes per week in feasting upon his magnificent collection. When
he was able to gratify his taste it was not half as enjoyable as he thought. I believe that he took more
pleasure in purchasing his first painting than he ever did in creating his fine gallery.
He is now interested more in accomplishing great and startling results in the speculative world
than he is in literature and art.
Is it not a fact that most men who have amassed wealth have won their fortunes at the cost of
nobler ideals?
The ideal should be like the bull's-eye of the target, the spot at which we aim, and with much prac-
tice we are reasonably certain to strike somewhere near .it.
Money has usually been the god to whom so many have bowed their heads in worship, and money
alone has been the ideal upon which so many thoughts have been fixed.
Our ideals, to be effective, must keep ahead of -us, and if we were ever to catch up with them our
days of usefulness would be over, for when a man finds that he has actually arrived at the goal for
which he has been striving, there is little incentive for further progress.
There is always something beyond, and therefore ideals are never fixed. We are destined to grow
every day, and sometimes we are irresistibly drawn toward higher ideals, and that is the direction in
which normal growth should tend.
A few years ago I knew a man well, who was making a few pianos a week, and he said to me at
that time, that he believed his limit would be fifty pianos per week, and that number of pianos seemed
very large to him. But he passed that number on the run, and he swept on to big figures that are
startling when compared with his early ideals.
He has branched out into various lines and his annual sales run into colossal figures, and yet he
is not satisfied. All of his early ideals have been passed by on the run, so to speak. He has halted between
victories only long enough to get breath. After all, are there any fixed ideals? Are they not stationary
just long enough to get by them?
We make our plans and by the time they have matured in a satisfactory manner we have bigger
and vaster ideas, which means, of course, further progress. It is a mighty good thing to have ideals.
I don't recall that I have ever met an individual who was at all interesting or entertaining who did not
possess ideals. Such men hardly ever arrive at any definite goal because they have no definite object
which they are striving to accomplish.
Men without ideals live because the vital forces are in a degree automatic; but without definite,
clearly mapped plans there must be a vast amount of misdirected effort, and misdirected effort is like
water running to waste. The mills will never grind with water that is past, any more than wasted energy
will act as a creative sense in future development. The call of the new is
one of the strong impulses in life, and the call of ideals means a constant
change always before our mental vision.