The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-07-07
Women and Luck.

! If there is one thing in the world in
which women have an unfailing and
| abiding faith it is in luck. No woman
ever really believes there Is any particu'
lar connection between cause and effect.
She does a certain thing, and il it turns
out we'll she congratu10tes herself upon
her good luck, not upon her good judy
ment, foresight or industry. II it turns
out badly she laments her ill-luck, but
she never feels she is in any way to
blame for it. 1t was just luck. That
was all.
| There is really nothing more curious
than to note how this belief tempers
every feminine act from the smallest to
the most important, and Il tragical eX-
ample Of it is given in the way women
marry. Cynics have long contended that
matrimony is lottery, but it is reserved
practice. We all know women who have
deliberately married drunken, worthless
| men, who have been dead beats and
| loafers all their lives. There was abso-
| lutely nothing in the premises to build 4,
hope upon, yet when those unworthy
husbands drag their wives down to mis-
cry and poverty and shame, we don't say
name is. has made a fool of herself and
| is getting just exactly what she has a
/ right to expect. No; we say she made
such an unlucky match and poor Lulu
| and Maymie 80 on to the end of the
chapter thinking they are the sport of
! destiny.
In smaller matters the same spirit is
| manifested. No servant is ever to blame
! for anything. If the soup is burned, or
too salty, or the bread is like lead, the
cook washes her hands of all RESPONSE
| blilty in the matter and lays the catas-
| trophe on the bad luck. not on her lack
of skill. Dressmakers, too, manifest the
same tatallstlc nature: When you go to
that they will have good luck with your
hne new silk, and that it will turn out
al right, and you go away in depressed
frame OF mind, showing that no reliance
| is to be placed on their measures, and
that If they cut it too short, or too tight,
they will excuse themselves on the
ground of luck being against them, and
that you are perfectly powerless to help
yourself
we hear on every side that Mrs. Blank
is so lucky about always having good
servants who stay with her year after
year. 1t apparently never suggests itself
to anybody that the fortunate woman
may use towards her employees kind
service, to her pleasure. Or perhaps it
is the harassed mother whose little ones
are puny and ailing and fretting who
speaks enviously of Mrs. Smiths luck in
having such hea THY children. She takes
no account of the fact that nine-tenths
of Mrs. Smiths luck" is simply in in
sisting on her children observing the
rules of hygiene, with wholesome, simple
food at regular times, plenty of fresh
water, and fresh air, and good sleep.
Every woman who has successfully
solved the bread and butter problem
knows what it is to be met at every
turn with wonder at her ''luck" in hay-
ing good place. Other women seem to
invariably regard it as piece of good
fortune that somehow went by favor
and the worker cannot say, as she might
that she has won it and holds it by labor
and self-sacrifce, from which she who
envies her would shrink with terror.
There is, of course, the fate that casts
our lines IN certain places, and that gives
us as our Inheritance riches or poverty,
beauty or LONELINESS, intelligence or stu
pidity, but after that our lives are left
pretty much to our shaping. 1t is our
! custom when a man or woman attains
to some great thing to speak of it as
luck. We do not know the weary years
i'll which, undaunted by failure and I'M
wearied by effort, they have been prepar-
ing for that master moment of human
fate. 1t was not luck. 1t was labor, for
they, while their companions slept,
were toiling upward in the night" New
Orleans Picayune.