Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-08-08

Are Discussed
BY MRS. WILSON WOODROW

/
1 once heard a magazine editor
say, that there was one theme for
a story which never failed to catch
the interest of the reader-that OF
the man who loses out and then
comes back"
| 1t follows then-doesn't it-that
I the reason this theme always evokes
a sympathetic response is because
it appeals to some instructive belief
! of the human heart We all, men
and women alike, must feel within
| us the ability to come back" or we
would not so universally concede
! that it is a possibility. For no char
| acter and no situation in fiction can
! stand unless they ring true to the
| great realities of life.
There are object lessons a-plenty
History is stuffed as full of them
| as a Christmas cake is Of plums
| Washington, and Farragut and
Julius Caesar and Napoleon and Mil
ton are examples of men who came
back. There is hardly a high light
in all the records of mankind from
| the days of the Patriarchs down
that does not fall into this category
Jacob came back, and so did Joseph
and Moses and Samson and David
and Job.
And as in the life of men, so in
the life of nations. England, the
unconquerable, has come bacn
again and again.
The truth is, that no defeat is
final and no mistake irrevocable
so long as the will to fight on and
to succeed endures.
There is the typical case of Gen
eral Grant. He had had his OPP
portunity and had made reasonably
good. Then the tide turned
Through adverse circumstances and
to some extent through his own er-
rors of judgment, he went down in
the scale. In middle life he stood
rated failure. Who in 1859 among
his friends and acquaintances would
have had the hardihood to proclaim
| Ulysses Grant as a coming great
national figure?
Yet the genius which directed the
siege of Ficksburg and carried
! through the campaign which ended
in the fall of Richmond was un-
doubtedly present in the thristless
tanner as much as in the great COM
mander. 1t needed only the oppor-
tunity to demonstrate itself. You
can't put an eagle into a parrots
cage and expect it to make much
of success at saying Polly wants a
cracker" And, according to all ac-
counts, Grant was never a very gar
rulous bird anyhow.
Certainly he did not say: well,
life is over and done with for me.
l have made irrevocable mistakes,
and I'm getting old, and there's no
chance for me in the future" Meth
er did he go around boasting over
his past successes-the brand of the
has-been. For the men who will
rule tomorrow are always too busy
planning and thinking ahead to
waste time on postmortems.
"They also serve who only stand
and wait" When Destiny beckoned,
Grant responded. He stepped for
ward to take his place among the
great captains of history. @
It's a great, big fallacy to say
that Opportunity knocks only once
at every door. That is not an orig
inal statement on my part, but it's
a true one, which is better. For NOp-
portunity knocks again and again
and comes persistently and in many
different guises to us all. The musty
old axiom which asserts the con-
trary is just refuge for the Stacker
and the shirk.
1t is true, however, that, as in
the processes of nature, there are
in every life longer or shorter per-
iods when things seem to come pretty
definitely to a standstill. The tide
goes out until it seems to our de-
spairing eyes to be receding as far
as the horizon; there Is nothing but
sand in every direction. 1t chokes
our throats and it smarts in our
eyes and we'd as lief die as live.
But the tide that goes out has got
to come in. Action and reaction !;
that's the law of the universe. And
during the deadly periods when we
seem to be merely marking time, we
are really gathering our forces for
fresh attack. Let us fall back
upon the eternal platitudes which
have never been surpassed as illus
trations of human life, the grub
within the chrysalis making ready
to emerge as a butterfly, the grain
beneath the winters snow silently
| gathering energy to expand and
ripen in the summer harvests.
Often the success which one
achieves may be directly traced to
these intervals of apparent discour-
agement and inaction.
An important figure in the manu-
featuring world to-day occupied as
a large corporation. He drifted into
unfortunate associations and, tryine
| to keep UP the pace, became a de-
faulter. His shortage was discov-
cred. He was tried and sent Ia
States prison. And that was the end
| of him-or would have been, IL he
had been made of ordinary stun.
But he did not yield TO the de-