The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-03-09
IT'S WELL TO Be LUCKY
Instances Where Mems For
tunes We're Made by
a Chance Hap
pening.
BUT THEY WERE PREPARED FOR IT
Edison's Patient Flooding Previous
to His Observation-Disclosures
Ahead of Their Time.
BUT THEY WERE PREPARED FOR IT

How far is success in life dependent
on luck? Men who have big balances
at their bar kers' are apt to deny the
existence of luck. But that there is
such a thing as good and bad fortune
meaning thereby the operation of
account for, nor CONTROLS, beyond
a doubt. Are not some men
born rich and Others poor? Some
blessed with winning faces and grace
full forms, while Others have ugly
looks and ungainly figures? Is there
no fortuity in the accidents" by
which mems lives are lost or saved? Do
we not see one man who sucks an
orange choked by the pit
while another man swallows
a penknife and lives; OF
scratch his finger with a pin and die
of lockjaw, in spite OF the utmos
medical skill, and another recover
after the shaft of a gig has run CON-
pletely through his body? So with
business and professional life. Did
not L'Ecure, when young and poor,
obtain the place of dentist to the King
of Poland on the very day on which
the King lost the last tooth in his
head? Did not poor Chatterton
poison himself just at the very time
when the feet of one who would have
relieved his poverty were turned to-
ward the street in which he died? Was
it not lucky for Daniel Webster that
Hayne made his onslaught on New
England, the reply to which won for
the New Highlander undying fameY
Let US acknowledge, then, that
there is an element of chancel in hui
man affairs; hat you and L may be
handicapped or INSTRUCTED in the race
Of life by circumstances beyond our
control. We seem sometimes to be
bound hand and foot and delivered
over to blind, impersonal, pitlless
laws. The world appears to us like
some vast mandatory, i'll which we
hear necessarily the clash and whir of
a hu &c complex machinery, over
which we have no control. The man
who rules the store or office which he
once swept out may seem to owe his
advancement wholly to his own
merits; but other boys, who also have
come up to the city with their world
" goods tied up in a bandana hand
kerchief, and who have worked as
hard and economical as closely, have
remained clerks all their days.
FIGHTINGBATTLES BRAyELY.
But though man is to some extent
the creature of circumstance, he has
also, to q large extent, the power OF
making his own circumstances, and
OF reacting upon them, and convert
ing them from obstacles into stepping
stones of success. The true way to
deal with adverse circumstances is to
be a still greater circumstance your
self. Nine out of ten OF the men who
have been eminently successful in
their callings have fought the battle
of life up hill against many opposing
forces. Instead of bemoaning
their hard lot, they have bowed
to the inevitable and used it to their
advantage. Instead of asking for an
impossible chess board, they have
taken the one before them and played
the game Look at that tireless work
er, Lord Brouglam. Can any one be-
lieve that by any combination of cir
cumstances his talents could have
been kept from asserting themselves
and winning recognition? 1t has
been said that if his station
had been that of a shoeblack,
he would never have rested
content till he had become the first
shoebiack in England. The luck OF
Napoleon and Nelson consisted, they
said, in being a quarter OF an hour be-
fore their time. When, in the dark
est hour of the Indian Mutiny, a
handful of Englishmen, poorly armed
and provisioned, won eight victories
in succession, the revolted Sepoys
said their conquerors had 1.-The devils
luck" but the only luck in the case
was that of force of will, invincible
courage and skill in arms.
BE PREPARED FOR EMERGENCIES.
Good luck is desirable even when
you have done your best to succeed,
but remember shat the most favorable
circumstances or strokes of fortune
are of little value unless you have pre-
pared yourself to take advantage of
them. OF what advantage wonld