Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-10-09
OPPORTUNITY
Passes BY Silently at Unexpected
Times.

Times.
1t is only the young and unschooled
who think that the world is waiting,
hat in hand, at the door to pay them
the living that it owes them. When
they get out into the main battle"
they discover that fate deals hard
raps and has a batting average high
er than that of the Boston Nationals
or the Philadelphia Athletics; but op-
portunity walks abroad in felt slip
pers on moonless nights, and if it
pauses at any door its importantly is
as gentle as the fall of pine needle
or the flick of chipmunk's tail.
With the disks of the wireless ap-
paratus clasped over your ears you
can hear the faint, far-away message
that may have travelled thousands of
miles to reach you. If you want to
know what still, small voice is like,
hearken 10 its barely inaudible vi
brancy. a spider makes about as
much noise as it waits for the fly, and
the proverbial wasp on the window
pane is a brass band for stridency
sound has navigated the vast sea of
the atmosphere to come to you, and at
close range it might be deafening.
Even so, your chance will not shout
and its voice will come not even in
a stage whisper, probably; but if you
will listen with all your might for
long time you may be lucky enough
to hear it, and then you must Jump
at the chance" or on the wings of
the wind it will get by you and make
for the horizon as rapidly as Santa
Claus reindeer.
Fate is a valiant champion of the
|singlestick, and lays on robustly, a
buffeteer that does not care who goes
TO the sod under its oaken fail. But
opportunity is a soft-footed, low
voiced, tender fingered creature that
goes to work quite the opposite way
to make a man feel how little he
counts for There is no insult like
that of being studiously, serenely ig-
nored-it is less cruel to knock a man
down and stamp on him, for then he
can hit back.
Those who yowl at the great luck
Of other men are those who look for
their good fortune to come down like
mamma from the skies by sheer force
of gravity unassisted. The railhead
of the line of least resistance may be
in some pleasant land where it is al
ways a golden afternoon of Indian
summer: but the way taken by the
strong man, who is monarch of all
he surveys, is blasted out of the solid
rock overhanging a perilous river.
The little men who envy big sue
cess shrink from the price that has to
be paid for it. In all the loneliness
of wings" some resolute pioneer took
the risk. because the whisper of the
inspiration came and his soul could
not sit still thereafter. He went
away, and the others hugged them
selves in the chimney-corner, and
their ease was delicately critical of
things to eat and drink all the time
he was gone. And when he coined
the force of his being into gold, they
said either that he stole it all, or that
Dame Fortune showed it to him at
the rainbow'S foot, and it was no
credit to himself Yet they were very
kindly and condescendingly willing to
divide the fruits of his industry with
him-and, indeed, they thought it only
equity that the balance betwiXt his
surpusage and their deficit should be
right speedily restored.
Give heed to the soft rataplan of
opportunity on your door, and VEN
ture out. and you may be called upon
to undergo Fate's harsh battering,
too, on your own body, ere you win.
| Opportunity does not promise any
one an easy life. 1t means an open
] door (when you have turned the
HANDLED, a road to the sky line (and
YOU must walk, and nameleSS count
less shapes to make you think that
YOU go wrong. 1t promises hard
travel and the best of its ultimate re-
wards are spiritual, not sensual. That
| is why when the shy ViStant is ut the
door so many are not at home.-Phila-
delphia Ledger.