The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-04-17

his own fortune" and all that, quite as
absurdly as Irving's Dutch tobacconist
in the Knickerbocker papers, who had
huge head of cabbage emblazoned on
the panels of the coach he finally set up,
and under it the motto "Alles Kopf
All Head" to indicate the one and only
cerebral source Of such magnificent
success. The motto and the illumina-
ting idea that went with it could never
have emanated from any but cab
bage head, of utterly commonplace
sauerkraut intellect.
In truth, the part played in human
destiny by what is called luck or pure
chance of fortune-as it appears to
mortal eyes-has in all ages. riveted the
attention of the wisest and profoundest
minds, of men like Aristotle, Sopho-
cles, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare. No
cabbage-head vaunt of absolute indi-
vidual control over the outcome of
events has ever for moment misled
their minds. In their stupendous dra-
mas of Prometheus, Oadipus, Othello,
Lear, the part played by seeming exter-
nal chance in precipitating the whole
tragic situation always appealed over
whelmingly to their Imagination.
There are whole families-as they
plainly saw even in everyday life
which from generation to generation
never have had a stroke of luck, just
as with some Jukes family Of our day,
while there are other families which
have had it straight along, and so pre-
sent an unbroken succession of sue
cessfu men of affairs scholars, sol
diers, jurists and divines. To We born
into the one brood means ignorance,
imbecilty ricketts,, the idiot asylum the
poorhouse or the Jail. To be born into
the other means health, capacity, OPP
portunity, the rich mansion the public
seat of honor Thus to an Aeschylus or
Sophocles--for all its splendor of envi-
ronment--a royal Pelops line of kings
stands for absolutely nothing more than
a Jukes family In purple and gold,
working out its wretched poverty
stricken poorhouse destiny on more
outwardly splendid regal lines. The
Pelops family was born under an I'M
lucky star. This is what impresses
these mighty dramatists as they set to
work to unveil the story oftheir fated
line, and to touch the heart by showing
how, though it never had a stroke of
luck, 1t yet glorified itself by manifest
ing certain heroic power Of forging
ahead without luck.
Now, Tom, Dick and Harry, as we'll
as all the rest of us average mortals,
can hardly fail, to be quite as much i'm
pressed with the part played in life by
what is called luck as ever Shakespeare
was. We see clearly enough, for ex-
ample, how one man, plain and, per-
haps, rather stupid farmer, chances to
strike an oil we'll on his land that yields
him vast fortune and an ultimate OPP
portunity to secure the happiness of his
dear daughter by marrying her to a
Connt Boni, while his side-by-side
neighbor, not unlikely a man of more
sense and industry, never strikes any
thing on his farm but stones he has to
struggle with 40 his dying day to make
them yield space for the beets and car
rots out of which he earns sparse liv-
ing. The one farmer, we say, had luck,
while the other had not, and then we
add, after all, what an immense deal
turns on luck! And we are right. A
pure stroke of luck, for which a man
can claim no iota of merit, may turn
the current of the whole future history
of his own life and of the lives of his
descendants.
Good luck, then, is the .Aladdln's
lamp, one rub on which may in an in
slant turn the ragged beggar boy into
the owner of splendid palaces and en-
chanted gardens. Bad luck, on the 9TH
er hand, is the hapless encounter with
the war. the pestilence, the hereditary
faint, the shipwreck, the treacherous
villain, either one of which may reduce
him back to rags, helplessness and
Each is termed luck, and on
the same grounds namely, that neither
personal intent nor foresight had a
whit to do with either event.
The only sane view, then, to take of
human life is that it Is an experience
in which foresight, prudence and in
dustry always count for much, but in
which luck will ever play master
part. No truer symbol of what must
be looked for on the life voyage can be
than that which is offered by
the calling ship on the ocean voyage.
Clear back in the early California
days, when the delirium of the gold
fever sent such hordes across the plains
to try their fortunes, it became to ship |
owners a matter of capital Importance
to dispatch out round the Horn cargoes
Of supplies of every sort. Fabulous |
prices would be paid for goods first on |
the market. Two first-rate clipper |
ships might easily have been fitting out |
IN New York at the same time, ships |
swift, stanch and ably COM
manded. The one however, from the |
nature Of her cargo, is able to put to sea |
4 day before the other. Throughout the |
whole vayage she carries a fair wind |
with her, races like gull clear down to |
The Horn, slips round that so often
stormy and battling promontory in the |
fairest Of weather, strikes the trade
winds beyond, and inside of ninety days |
s anchored in San Francisco bay. The
second ship, however, meets pust the
'everse Of this. She pitches into head |
winds and head seas from the start
All the way to the Horn she has to
peat one hundred miles for every thirty |
she makes. Arrived off there, she has |
% fight it out with gales, squalls, s1eet |
and ice that keep her under storm sails
'or six whole weeks, and when at last |
she drops anchor in San Francisco bay
,ver one hundred and forty days have
gone. Yet throughout the whole voy-
lge her captain, alert by night and day.
has never lost an inch Of Roadway he