Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1899-03-09
A FIGHT AGAINST FATE.
Lay Aside All Vanity and Ascertain the
Cause of Failure.

Lay Aside All Vanity and Ascertain the
Cause of Failure.
There is a resolve that is noble
and an obstinacy that is ignoble--
a stiff upper lip that carries a
man well through this world, and
a stiff-necked RIGHTEOUSNESS that
leads him to failure and often
lands him in ruin. It all depends
on the motive lying at the back OF
that stern ''I will!'' whether it
be for opposition to evil or re-
sistance to wholesome discip-
line-a struggle with self or a
fight against fate and the strong
er powers. At one end of the
scale stands Bruce's spider; at the
other suicidal swine which swim
against the stream and cut their
throats in transit-the man who
will not accept as final the failure
which he thinks that perseverance
and a better method can trans
mute-into success, and he who
will not learn by the teaching of
experience, and SO, through dis
appointment, come to a truer
measurement of his own powers
and all exacter knowledge of how
to use them.
81 will be rich, I will be sue
cessful: I will be famous" says
the one, as soon as he has recov-
cred from the staggering blow
he has just received in the rejec-
ton of his work-the failure of
his application for Office, 'I will
not be discouraged, and 1 will
conquer in the end" Good! But
how is it to be done? Not by
striding about the world, clench-
ing his hands and showing his
futile teeth, saying with a Napo-
leonic air: II will, and 81 will
only by careful examination of
why and where he failed, and how
it was that the thing which looked
so fair and feasible to him, struck
otherSs-a and those others his ul-
innate arbiters-as inadmissible
and below the mark. If he is to
succeed in carrying his point, he
must first lay aside all vanity and
all obstinate adherence to precon-
ceived ideas. He must get new
pair of eyes, and see things as
those ultimate arbitors have seen
them; he must believe that honest
criticism may sometimes go be-
yond enthusiastic endeayors; and
that the doer is not at all times
the best judge of the work done.
Butt, nothing in the world of man
being incapable of modification
acc ording to circumstances, there
have been cases, and will be
aga ia, where the poet and the ar
tist saw farther than the critic;
and where the plain man, con-
forming to established rules, was
wrong, and the unsuccessful in
surgent was right. Still, the ca :
giles who have been driven forth
as base fowl of strange breed are
rare compared with the bantams
which have strutted like game
cocks, and the jays who have
trailed in the dust the plumes
they have borrowed from the peas
cock, and, as working hypothe-
sis, the rule holds good that the
candid and xell-equipped critic
can judge better of an "achieve-
mentP' than he who has wrought
with perhaps more zeal than
knowledge, and with an ideal sur
passing practicable capacity to
fulfill. IF, then, a man who has
received this staggering blow OF
rejection will honestly set him
self to discover why and where,
the chances are that he will sue
ceed better the next time, having
found out the cause Of failure
this. 1t is his way of saying 81
will," and the echo in the future
is almost sure to be ''I have.