Gilpin observer., 1909-05-06
Opportunity.

Some one has said that "a Genius
is one who takes the lemons handed
him by fate, and starts lemonade
stand"
A man said to me the other day,
why trouble ourselves about the per
picking questions of life, when we
can't settle them to our satisfaction!
said to him that is just the trouble
with the human race, they are too
proud to take the line of least resist
ance, and that is the reason that we
have not advanced farther in the
line of development. Myron Reed
said 1--WE have been plowing around
the stumps long enough, let us root
them out If everyone were salts
fled with existing conditions, there
would be no further development,
nothing more discovered. What the
world continually needs is men like
Columbus, Marquette, and Livingstone
and Bell, and Marconi, and a host OF
others who have assisted in bringing
the world to it's present enterprising
condition.
We have not made the best of
our opportunities, we are not using
our powers as we should or our sue
cess would have been measureless.
When we remember what HELEN
Keller, that marvel of the twentieth
century, has accomplished, though
blind, and deaf, and dumb, who has
fitted herself to become an educator
of the human race, there is no limit
to what we might have accomplished
with all our facilities alive, if We had
run the race with intelligence"
1t is only by digging and hard work
that we meet success in any line.
"The heights by great men reached
and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight;
But they while their companion slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
1t has been said that if opportuni-
ties were females, men would EN-
brace more of them. We must ad'
init that the problem of life is ever
present with us, and the fear of dis
solution from need of bread prevents
many a man from venturing, and as
Shakespeare says, enterprises oi
great pith and moment their currents
turn away, and lose the name OF
action" But those conditions obtain
ed in Burns time, for we hear him
eXclaiming:
"See yonder poor oe'r-labored knight
So abject, mean and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth,
To give him leave to toll"
And Hood sensed the situation
when he said, "Oh God, that bread
should be so dear and flesh and
blood so cheap"
But instead of these conditions
preventing, they have been a spur
'to prick the sides of our intent,
and urge men on to heroic deeds
for it is not always the men with
whom nature has lavishly dealt, who
have accomplished the most in the
line of discovery, and for those things
which further the interests of man
kind.
1t is the men who have the oppor-
tunities who fail to embrace them
as rule. How often do we see
men who have every advantage, with
physical and mental ability. influence
and prestige, "sell their birthright
for mess of pottage," and are ship
wrecked on the shores of neglect.
The world is looking for the man
"who can carry the message tc
Garcia" the man who does things
There are too many men only cap
able of handling a pick and shovel
and not enough of the men who car
span the East river with a bridge
build a navy, or cut a continent II
two.
There is a picture painting by ;
famous artist, of a slave, hammer II
his hand, standing by an anvil forg
ing his chain into crown, and be
side him king, forging his crown
into chain. There is portrayed
both conditions of mankind.
A. T. T.