"It's growing late," said the honey-bee;
"Winter's no sort of weather for me;
I'll hurry away to the hive."
"It's growing cold," said the bustling fly;
"There's going to be plenty of snow by-and-by,
And how will a poor fly thrive?"
The cricket piped, "The season is old,
Leaves and grasses are turning to gold;
It's a queer world that changes so;
My chirp has lost its musical tones,
And the north wind bites to my very bones;
I think I had better go."
The squirrel said, "It is growing chill;
The windfalls have gone to the cider-mill;
But there's many a chestnut burr
Ready to burst at the frost's first touch.
If snow flies soon, _I_ sha'n't mind much,
Wrapped in my thickening fur."
"The best of the year," trilled the lingering thrush,
"Has left us behind; there's a tender hush
Brooding o'er meadow and dell;
Our nests are all empty, our birdlings have flown;
There is nothing to keep us at home, I must own;
There's nothing to sing but 'Farewell.'"
"LUCK."
"Just like his luck!" half of the boys said, when Charlie Foster won the
State Scholarship.
They had made the same remark when his name had been sent in by the
principal of the school to the superintendent as his best scholar. In
all likelihood these same old school-fellows will keep on saying, "Just
like his luck!" if Charlie ever becomes a Judge, or a Senator, or if he
marries happily, or makes a fortune. Every step upward is attributed by
some men and boys to that unknown quantity called "luck." And curiously
enough, just as "Like his luck" is used to account for the success of
one's friends, so "Just like my luck" is used to explain our own
failures.
"It is just my luck! There was not a single question about anything I
knew. I had crammed up the capitals of the States, square root, and the
conjugations, and I was asked about mountain ranges, compound interest,
and the fifth declension. I always was unlucky!"
In all this talk about "luck" is there not a good deal of inconsistency?
We never employ the word to account for our own successes or somebody
else's failures. When the said Charlie Foster misses a catch at
base-ball, or catches a crab in a race, we do not cry, "How unlucky he
is!" but, "What a muff that Charlie Foster is!" and when we ourselves
manage to get on the roll of honor, we resent with virtuous indignation
any congratulations on our luck. "Luck, indeed!" we growl; "there was no
luck at all. It was just hard work, and nothing else."
Moreover, this talk about luck is, in the first place, somewhat unmanly,
not to say cowardly. To trust to luck is a confession that one can not
do anything by one's own labor or one's own intellect. It is really, my
boy, an acknowledgment that you have no independence of character, no
strength of will, no patience, and no perseverance. It is a sure
confession of carelessness and idleness. "I'll study this thing or that
thing, and trust to luck for the rest," you say, and the result is you
are nowhere in the examination.
So in everything we undertake. If we neglect to take ordinary pains, if
we omit ordinary prudence, no luck ever saves us from disaster.
Trusting in luck is a very different thing from trusting in Providence.
Providence aids those who aid themselves, and just in proportion as they
do their work honestly and conscientiously. Luck is a kind of capricious
spirit which is expected to set at naught all the laws of nature for our
advantage, or to our disadvantage, without the slightest apparent reason
why it should intervene at all. If there is such a thing, that can
either make or mar us, our first duty is not to be its slave, but to
make ourselves its master.
We must not stand like beggars at a street corner until luck drops a few
coppers into our hats. We must be a law unto ourselves, and not mere
playthings of chance. Let us be honest enough to acknowledge our own
mistakes. The grumbler who laments,
"I never had a slice of bread,
Cut nice and smooth and long and wide,
But fell upon the sanded floor,
And always on the buttered side,"
fancies himself unlucky. If he were honest, he would blame himself for
not keeping good hold of his bread and butter, and if he thought about
it, he would see that falling on the buttered side was a natural result
of the way in which he was holding it.
This notion of luck very often arises from a mixture of conceit and
jealousy. We do not like to allow that another has more talent than we
have, and has used his faculties better. He has, however, if we examine
his career, been more studious, more careful, more observant. It would
be much more noble of us, instead of repeating like parrots the word
"luck," meaning thereby that he has got a reward which he does not
deserve, to candidly say, "He has deserved all he has won; he is the
better fellow."
Another evil arising from this talk about luck is that at last we
actually believe in it. Once under the influence of this notion, we
exercise no caution or foresight. "Luck," we say, "will bring us
through." Fortunately for our future and permanent success, luck does
nothing of the sort. In the long-run, luck is nowhere. You may have
heard of games of chance--gambling games, as they are styled--and of
lotteries and the like. You have heard of people being lucky at them.
The professional gambler and lottery-keeper know better than that; they
know that even in throwing dice there is very little luck. The man who
is lucky to-day is unlucky to-morrow: it is in reality skill or trickery
and not luck that enables the professional gambler to pursue his career.
Lucky people, in fact, are people who have thoroughly trained themselves
for the battle of life. They have eyes open to perceive a coming danger,
and have learned how to avoid it; they recognize a difficulty, and know
how to overcome it; they see an opportunity, and know how to make use of
it; and they are ready, with all their faculties alert, to seize it
before it has gone forever. Their success is visible to every eye, and
arrests our attention at once. What we do not see, very often what we
will not see, but deliberately shut our eyes to, is the foresight they
exercise, the careful training they have undergone, the long practice
which has made them perfect.
There is nothing brilliant or showy about this practice and training,
and therefore we have not noticed them. But they are there,
nevertheless. To all of us, every day of our lives, opportunities
present themselves which pass without our heeding them, or, if we see
them, without our having the courage and skill to avail ourselves of
them. We let them fly, never to return, because we are not ready, and
then we cry, "Just like our luck!" As Shakspeare says,
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
Away with your notions of luck. Be manly, and trust to work. Do your
duty, and let luck do its worst.