Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-25
LITERARY SUCKLINGS
A Request in Behalf Of a Graduate
Excites Shirley Dare's Wrath.
PAP is A BAD THING FOR SUCH.
Starvation Better From the Standpoint Of
Society's Best Good.
wHY KIpLING Is 80 SUCCESSFUL
WRITTEN FOR THE DrsrATcH.I

WHY KIpLING Is 80 SUCCESSFUL
WRITTEN FOR THE DrsrATcH.I
If the dear public grows tired Of being
taken into confidence about some of these
letters with which am favored, in town
meeting phrase, let it be manifested.
always did like to know what various
human nature is capable Of, and my taste is
in fair way to be gratifed.
The last epistle,- in delicate. feminine
hand, after polite and complimentary phras-
Ings. came to the point on the last page, as
follows:
Now am going to interest you In young
man, il you are so situated as to be interested.
Splendidly educated, literary taste, but does
not Seem to find the right place. inclose his
address. If you can do anything for him am
sure 1t will be appreciated.
Some people evidently think il privi.
lege for other people to interest themselves
on demand for the unsatisfed and unpro-
vided who have their minds fixed on the
higher apples on the tree. You may have
planted your crabtree from the wood, graft
ed, nursed and pruned it for 20 years, and
when it is in full bearing, if the entire
neighborhood doesn't have the benefit Of the
fruit it isn't for want of asking.
What the Request Means.
There are procedures in vogue among
highly respected people which need to be
characterized as they deserve. This sort Of
application is one of them. To a writer
born 80 of three generations of hard thinkers
and harder workers, whose way has been
fought and toiled for in the crait, come the
friends OF this young graduate whose way
has been smoothed for him through q
splendid education, with polite hint that
the 500 chances for work on every hand are
not up to the level Of his ambitious taste,
and ''if you can do anything for him it will
be appreciated"
Doing anything in such a case means the
canvass Of ones literary acquaintance and
connections, writing a good many letters
and using no little effort in conversation for
a good many weeks. This is desired as ii it
were joy and favor for busy person who
never knows an hour of leisure, whose work
piles up two years beforehand. For, mark
you, let one prove any ability and willing
ness to work and the world takes care he
never shall want for it. He can have the
privilege of doing all his own work and
other peoples, too. if he will submit to it.
When Men Are Interesting.
To this and all similar applications, for
this is not solitary one by some dozens, L
beg to say. in the first place, decline to
feel the slightest interest in young men as
such. For one reason, they are able to
take sufficient interest in themselves to ex-
onerate the rest of the world from solicitude
in their behalf.
Except to themselves and some girl or two
they are the most uniuteresting creatures of
the human race. Their talk is egotistic,
crude, limited; their opinions hackneyed
repetitions of the latest-not always the
latest-fashions in ideas, caupht from ire
membered" authors. Boys like under II
and over 45. At the latter period they be-
gin to feel the sun, to ripen, color and take
flavor. When the mouth gets its grip and
the eve its aim, from that time up to 80 and
into the eternities men can be interesting
outside their personal and closest circle, not
much before. They have to be tolerated,
under conditions, at meal times and when
there is nobody else around, and it will
never do to let them know individually Just
how perfectly their places are filled by va
cancy. When think of the hours of sub
missive boredom have endured with afiable
and condescending young men feel tired.
Exceptions to the Rule.
Exceptions prove the rule, and I am
happy to think of few hard-working, in
telligent lads, shrewd with native intelli-
gence and rare good feeling-one a fisher
man, one a clerk in a grocery, one working
druggist-with whom it was possible to talk
cheerily, with sense of bumor and gain.
But they mad all worked through from their
teens, the young druggist allowing himself
just 30 cents a week above the cheapest
board possible to pay the rest of his salary
for his sisters education. A man like that
is never uninteresting.
In the second place don't see why, in
the name of the humanities, anyone is called
on to feel or exert interest for a hale, sound
Young man, with use of his limbs and
''splendidly educated" besides. What more
onght he to need? What is his splendid ed
ucation good for, ii it has not placed him at
an advantage over the rest of the world?
That others may we'll ask Of him, not he of
the worid.' Were he q woman untaught or
half disabled with young children and help
less ones dependent on her faltering arm,
or an old man breaking under the buffets of
misfortune, ne would have right to help;
but a young man of abilities and advant-
ages above the common, or so esteemed, to
20 about asking influence at second or third
hands to get a better helping than fate
serves out to him, does not excite enthusi-
aSn.
Knocks for the Young Graduate.
Besides, 1t appears that the young man is
not without work and duty, only he has not
the right place to suit his taste and terms.
Most people do not find the right place till
they have been looking for it 20 years or
more, and are thankful to get it then. What
business has a young graduate to expect a
place to suit him? The question is not
whether he can get work to suit him, but
whether he can do work to suit the world,
and, if not, the sooner he learns or puts him.
self out of the way the better. If he can get
taken on trial in any low position in the
worlds great business, on food and lodging,
it is all he has a right to look for till he
proves his fitness. When he has looked the
world we'll over, be will conclude the first
place that offered was tine right place, only
he was not man enough to fill it.
Probably Moses keeping sheep in the
deserts of Midiau, or Won Moltke as
subaltern, felt that he was not in the right
place, but Fate had other views for them.
Neither handling trunks as a hotel porter
nor keeping books in a corner grocery has
ever kept a man OF real ability from being a
general or a Cabinet Minister.
Finding the Right Place.
To take late example. Mr.. Clyde Fitch,
with as fine an education as the country af-
fords. filled some years by giving private
lessons in languages and studying history
for plays and stories, as a sculptor studies
anatomy and form. So he is able to write
"Beau Brummel" and finds tine right place
much sooner than by canvassing his friends
and his friends friends for something COM
mensurate to his merits in his own idea.
I own willingness to take trouble and