Morning journal and courier., 1883-04-12
Life Rs a Junior Clerk.

Of the many roads in life which are safe and easy to tread, but which lead nowhere, a junior clerkship in the government office is among the safest and the easiest. It offers sure pay, with tolerable short hours of work, and this of 8 kind which not only demands no mental exertion, but which scarcely even admits of it work just long enough and hard enough to carry man through the day and to enable him to kill time more pleasantly and more creditably- than by absolute and barefaced idleness. To some minds this is an ideal position. They are ambitious, but in humble way, and are well content to be perched at desk 8 certain number of hours in the week, to receive their stipends with unfailing regularity as 8 quarter-day comes round, and to feel themselves public servants engaged upon State affairs, conducting the business of the coun- try in however, mechanical a way, as the arms and.not the heads, In these days of competition, when the struggle of existence is becoming continually keener and the re- ward of great success more and more diff cult of attainment, there is no want of men who are glad of the safe refuge which gov ernment office opens for them. The busy world outside respects them and envies them. They are fortune's favor1tes in general esti- nation at all events, though, perhaps. not in their own.
 It is all very we'll for time to go on year
 
 copying sailors wives letters, or transfer ring entries from one folio volume to another But in due course men arc apt to get a little weary of 1t, and to fancy themselves capable of better things and of a higher and mo re .lu erative position. The upward movement, which is in accordance with office rules, is not rapid enough to satisfy them. They for get that the jog -trot road on which they find themselves was of their own original choice. They might have had more if they would have risked more and would have worked harder. The great rewards ot life liein direction different from that which they have taken. What they must look for by way of step upward is small rise of salary after each completed period of service with an ab- solute limit fixed beyond which they are not to be suffered to go. The man who has begun with his G120 year can expect with cenf- dence that in due time he will be in receipt of hls G1S0. These or such as these are the terms on which he has compromised his chances in life.
 All men, we may be sure, prefer the prizes of life to the blanks; but we are not to as- sume therefore that all men will seek the prizes at the price at which they are to be had. Whatever the special prize may be which comments itself to a mans fancy, whether it be wealth, or fame, or power, or g recognized position iu the eyes of the world, he soon finds out that it is not to be
 
 if at all, by hard work; by protracted struggle which will be doubtful for 8 long time, and which may very possibly be un- successful in the end. There are vanqulshed to bs found among the competitors in lfes race. To some natures, confident in their own resources, and endowed with an energy and determination of will which can carry them ov6f all difficulties, there is positive charm in the choice of 8 road not distinctly marked out in advance, and in which dan gers and adventures may present themselves at any moment. They are resolved to sue ceed, and they probably do succeed. Pos. sunt quia posse videntur. They may be beaten back a thousand times, but they push through and come safely through to the goal. Others there are more prudent or more timid or less well furnished with offensive and de- fensiye arms. Great things, they feel. are not for them, greatly as they may wish for them, and gladly as they would receive them on the tolerably easy terms on which they are Lot to be had. So they make up their with the best equivalents that como in their way There are plenty of men who have neither the wish nor the power to be ener- getic Neither hard work nor downright likeness is to their taste. They like some thing between the two, a make-believe sort of work, decent, respectable way of getting on easy terms at no mental exer- ton whatever These men are, so to say, the normal products of the race-sound, steady, commonplace persons, no geniuses and no fools gifted with fair abilities, but with no more than fair, and seeking chiefly to get through life quietly. and not to be put to the trouble of being compelled to think or work overmucIl-