San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-03-21

en- seem to have an instructive disrel-
ish of all that which comes most close
ly to them as their daily work and
service among their kind.
This largely arises from that native
curiosity to pry into things that are
not our affair which seems to have
been primarily an endowment of the
race. 1t is this truth that is voiced
in the myth of the apple and Eve, and
in more or less of all the folk lore of
the earlier years. There is nothing in
itself reprehensible in this curiosity,
but it is the fruitful germ from which
an eternal harvest of indecisiOn and
abOrted effort springs. 1t is not real
ly necessary for any one man or any
one woman to know more than one
thing. The success of life will lie in
knowing that and putting it to use.
FitZSimmons in his late brutal fight
with that other brute in human form,
at Carson. understood that one thing
and he whipped.
There is no crime in speculation,p
vided no one else is defrauded, but
there is a disability in it that defrauds
the Spectator. The man who confines
hlllSCll W the lulllSS ludl llt Cdu az
tually do Is always the successful
man. The man who tries the things
that he knows not that he can do only
succeeds by accident. Every man and
woman should know what they can
and what they cannot do, in a general
way, before they settle down to any
career in life. There are thousand
guideposts to this knowledge, and
that knowledge might be immensely
| increased were more attention paid to
the subject. Self knowledge thus
falls directly within the lines of that
knowledge which should be possessed
by every one, and for ignorance here
| there is no excuse.
Why it is that we so naturally run
to the things that are too big for us,
making pitiable abOrtiOns of our lives,
is one of the things hard to under
stand. Why the sculliOn always re-
| bells against dressing vegetables and
| washing dishes and thinks it would be
so much nicer to cook is one of the
| mysteries of life. 1t is certainly not
/ so hard to do her work as for the cook
| who sweats out her days over the
range, with all the anxiety of her
| work upon her, lest her dinner should
not prove a success. Why the clerk
] always wants the managers chair, the
student the toga of the professor, the
| pettifogger the bench Of the judge, re-
mains the mystery. 1t is true that all
| the duties of these higher callings
may be within the power of the under
ling, but there is no patient prepare
ton for the higher, no understanding
that the better and more thorough the
| preparation the surer the advance
| ment.
Why there is such a rush for the
honOrs and such n Sinking OF the la
! bors, is one of those things that are
| not solved. There are to every man,
all along his waypaths leading off the
main road into which he must not en-,
! ter if he would succeed. No man who
has not a good nose for the hottest
trail along which the real game of his
life is to be pursued, will ever be a
success. The dog who takes off al
every cross scent is not worth the
| powder to kill him. as a hunting dog
He may be valuable as a house dog.
| but not as a bird or other game dog
That a man is not capabale of train.
in as well as a dog is saying very lit.
tie for the fellow who too often kicks
the better animal of the two.
1t is just as necessary for that dog
to know what he is not to hunt as to
know what he is. How not to do IL
Is as necessary a lesson as how to dc
1t. What concern is it of the clerk in
a mercantile establishment how bust
ness in a mine is carried on? Why
should a woman desire to know how
hard a blow a brutal prize fighter can
hit another? Why should a minister OF