The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1915-04-30
Luck and Pluck.

\ Respectfully submitted to the young
hen of our town and vicinity.)
Young man, your success or your
ilure, your veal or woe of life will
ing largely in tie manner in which
Tou treat those two words.
Our fathers were good religious peo-
PIE and did not mean to foster athe-
ism When they talked about luck and
gave a halfway assent to its Goddess
reality If the universe were an in
finite chaos, if order had no throne IN
its wide realm, if universal law were
a fable or fancy, if God were Bah
eI. or the world pandemonium there
might be such a thing as luck. But
While from the particle to the globe,
from the animalcule to the archan-
gel, there is not being or thing
or time or an event, disconnected
VITA the great government of eternal
law and order, we can not see how
such game of ecance as the word
luck supposes can be admitted to any
corner of the great world. Luck!
What is it? A lottery? A frolic OF
games? A ruse among the element?
A trick of dame nature? Has any
scholar defined luck, any philosopher
explained it's nature, any chemist
shown us its elements? Is luck that
strange nondescript unmaterIaiity
that does all things among men tnat
they can not account for? If so, why
does luck not make fool speak words
of wisdom, an ignoramus. utter lee
lures on philosophy, a stupid dolt write
the great works of music and poetry.
Many are the young men who waste
the best part of their lives in at
telapts to WOO this coy maid into their
embraces. They enter into this or
that or the other speculation, with
the dreamy hope that luck 'fill pay
them a smiling visit. Some go to CAL
ifornia or Australia, or the far West,
or the torrid or frigid zones, or some
other way off place, with no fair pros
poets or hope of success from their
own energies or exertions, but depend
ing all the while for a gentle smile
from capricious luck. Poor fellows!
they find that luck does not get SO far
away from home.
Some less daring and more lazy,
loiter about home, drawl about town,
or loll through the country, whose
only hope and expectation is in
shuttle of luck in their favor. They
szssaM they deserve nothing yet with
AUDIENCE hard as brass, they will
to luck for a Windfall or a fat
P6fice, or a living and foolishly await
an answer. These are the men wco
make your gamblers, house thieves,
your counterfeiters, your gentlemen
loafers. They are not men who orig
inally mean any harm, but they be-
lieve in luck, and they trust to luck,
and they are going to have it out OF
luck some way. They despised mean
ness at first perhaps, as bad as you OF
I do. but somebody told them of luck
and they believed and 10! they are
duped. Little by little they went over
to meanness, awaiting all the while for
a shake of the hand from luck.
1t is not luck, but pluck, which
weaves the web of life. 1t is not luck
but pluck wiaich turns the wheel ee
fortune. 1t is pluck that amasses
wealth, that crowns men with honor,
that forges the luxuries of life. We
use the term pluck as synonymous
whole-nearted energy, genuine bravery
of, soul.
That man is to be pitied who is too
fearful and cowardly to go out and
do battle for an ionest living and
competence in the great field of hu-
man exertion. He is the man Of luck
bad luck. Poor fellow, he lost his
luck when he lost mis- pluck. Good
pluck is good luck, Many man has
lost his luck, but never while lie had
good pluck life. Men lost their luck
by letting their energies exc through
bad habits and unwise projects. One
man loses his luck in his late morn
ing maps, another in his late evening
hours, another in the bar room, anoth-
er in the ball room, one down by the
river holding the boyish fishing roc
another in the woods chasing down
the innocent squirrel. One loses his
luck in folly, one in fashion, one IN
idleness, and great many in bad man
agement. Indeed, bad management IS
oil no Il