The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-06-20
BESELENA'S PRATqLE.

I never thought until the otherd day
that a man can honestly and truly be-
lieve in chance. ucThe average man
SCOTS at it, and women look with pity,
not unmixed with contempt, upon the
man who is bold enough to come for
ward and openly acknowledge that he
pins his faith on it. Yet not long ago q
solid business man told me in all earn
estness that he pinned all his faith on
it. The man whoqto1d me this is a self
made man who has carved out his own
destiny Such life as his has been,
full of hard and bitter experiences,
gives no time for maudlin sentimental
ity. With the self-made man it's a case
of work for yourself at an absurdly
early age or starve to death. The self
made man profits from personal expert
ence only; he has no one to furnish
him with advice; his rough contact
with the world sharpens his wits, calls
all of his ingenuity into play. and in the
end you viii generally find him at the
head of some large enterprise. The
failures in life of these men are the ex-
ceptions, not the rule. However, l do
not wish to be understood as maintain
ing that an education does not count. !
know for a certainty that the only re-
greet of the self-made man is that he
did not have the intellectual advantages
of those more fortunately situated
Given these advantages the question
arises Would he be the same financial
success he is to-day? Chance" said
the self made man, comes in the life
of every man. The only trouble is that
men don't know when to take it. Chance
is the pivot upon which every mans
| life turns. When the critical moment
arrives ninety nine men out of every
| hundred fail to recognize it, and so the
chance which would alter the whole
tenor of their future life slips by I'M
| needed. Very few men get more than
one of these chances in their lifetime,
and if you fail to take that chance when
opportunity offers it to you, you are
lost" And then the self-made man fell
into a brown study and proceeded to
| forget all about me.
AS the summer season advances the
| thoughts of the average woman natu-
| rally turn to the seaside or the mount
| aims, or to any of the hundred and one
places where lovely woman HES her
self during the hot weather. The wom-
tunate acquaintance that she intends
| leaving home for the sole purpose
of bettering her health, which is per-
! feet, in nine cases out of ten; that the
only clothes she intends taking with
her are those which are absolutely nee
essary; that she doesn't believe in over
! dressing at the seaside anyway. Then
| when her guests have gone she will
have her largest Saratoga brough.
| down stairs and into its capacious
depths proceed to pack her most stun
ming gowns and fetching hats. Bidding
| her husband a touching farewell, she
| betakes herself to her summer retreat
| where she will, uncomplainingly, put
| up with all manner of Inconvenience
| for the next two months. all the time
persuading herself that she is having a
| perfectly lovely time in room on the
| top of the house, and which is so small
! that she can scarcely turn around in
| it, and into which it is an absolute i'm
possibility to get her trunk. During the
! day she sits around the piazZas, goS-
slipping with the women, criticising the
married men and flirting desperately
with the young ones Nothing so de-
| lights the soul of tender youth as q
| filtration with a married woman several
years his senior; it awakens in him a
sense of his own importance, rouses him
| to full realization of the fact that at
| last he is getting to be a man. All
young men in their unripe twenties
have to go through just such expert
ences. OF course, it is desperately hard
on the young girls who swarm such