The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-01-10
DON'T DELAY TO BE ENrERPR1srNe.

proceed on a basis Of absolute certainty is
neither prudence nor economy. There is
danger that much of this sort of procrasti-
nation will result from the depression and
gloom which now pervade commercial and
agricultural circles. The Micawberian habit
of waiting for something fortunate to "turn
up" is not exclusively the vice of an exuber-
antly hopeful nature. Perhaps its conse-
quences are never so deplorable as when it is
developed from a distrust of the future which
borders on despair. When the old Romans
adopted the maxim that fortune favors the
brave, they spoke perhaps more wisely than
they knew. Underneath its immediate design
as polite argument against timid counsels
there lies profound philosophical truth.
There are occasions when courage and hope
are synonymous. Our people are in the pres
ence of such an occasion at this moment
They cannot be too often reminded that, with
respect to all the peaceful activities of which
the existing situation admits the favorites of
fortune are the hopeful. For they are in the
| thick Of q battle whose responsibilities are as
great, whose stakes are as precious, whose
issues are as momentous, as those of the red
dest field which ever shook to the fateful throb
of artillery and to the war drums pulse of
death. And the courage which they need for
this battle, the courage which can crown
them with victory in the end, no matter
what adverse contingencies may intervene,
is the courage of indomitable hope.
| Among all their enemies none is
| SO insidious as despair Stimulating the
voice of prudence. 1t would persuade them
to resign the pending combat, to lay aside
their trusty weapons, and to wait until day
of perfectly assured promise shall encourage
them to take arms against progressive accu-
mutation of troubles. Let them beware
For the timid and procrastinating such day
never comes. 1t is always better alike for
men and for their utensils that they should
wear out in use than that they should be
consumed with rust. Infinitely less are the
peril and the inevitable loss of friction than of
inaction.
The hand of the diligent maketh rich, and
there.is no quality more essential to diligence
than promptitude. Such hand can always
find something to do, which, having found,
it will do at once and with all its might.
Wherever there is room for life and for its in
tellectual and physical activities, there is
room for useful industry, for profitable enter
prise, for different economy from that of
the reereant servant of the sacred parable
who, taking counsel of fear and of Incidence,
buried his talent in the ground
The sluggard who has no heart to set forth
because of an imaginary lion in the path, is
the first to find the real wolf at the door.
Such will be the experience of whole people
when majority of them shrink, in a like
spirit, from the various paths to which en-
terprise beckons. Gloomy as the skies may
now appear, those of the future will be still
more gloomy for all who fail to nerve them
selves for active encounter with the dangers
and difficulties of the present, meanwhile
laying the fattering JUNCTION to their souls
that they are thus storing up rich reserve of
resources ready for development when a
brighter day shall dawn. The most accom-
plished and successful navigators have be-
come so by defying unpropitious weather and
contending with dangerous seas. If naviga-
ton should, from this time forth. wait for an
assurance of fair weather, ships would rot at
their moorings, and commerce would be no
more.
The association which instituted the State
Fair now in progress at this city, breaches,
by eloquent example, against the weak and
ruinous policy Of putting off endeavor to
more convenient season, and keeping both
energy and capital dormant until no clouds
should appear in the horizon and every star
in the armament should be fortunate sign
And the interest which our people take in this
exhibition is proof that they are not intrac-
table to its lessons. Let them not fail to
turn these lessons to practical account Let
them ponder, and as far as may be translate
into actual results, the profound utilities
which are suggested by the mechanical and
agricultural features of this fair. Having
learned in theory, let them resolve to illustrate
in practice, how greatly the intelligence, the
diligence, and the skill of few, with the aid
OF machinery, may compensate, and perhaps
more than compensate, for the de ection of
the laboring many to useful industry and
enterprise. Nor should it be forgotten, while
looking here or elsewhere for either precept
habit of continually waiting for pros
pective opportunities and continually
magnifying present difficulties, that the vice
of idleness is not confined to personal mac
tivity. Money that is boarded up Withdrawn
from enterprise, and serving no one either in
the way of interest or as a basis of credit,
represents proportionate idleness on the part
of its owners. If it is equivalent to the labor
of thousand men and to machinery equal to
the power of ten thousand horses, then it
signifies by its inaction the loss to its owners
and to the community of that much operative
force and that much productive industry.
Such inaction, if not unavoidable, must there
fore be something worse than an economical
blunder, and scarcely less than crime against
society.