Year: 1873

Essay on Luck.


We are all children Of chance. Some
of us are kindly favored by fortune !;
some seem to be the victims of fate !;
and others neither the one thing nor
the other-knocked about from pillar
to post, with here streak of fat luck,
and there a streak of the leanest kind.
But, brethren, every one Of us is lucky
in one respect, that is, in getting into
this living and breathing world. Our
being born is but the result Of acci-
dent after all, philosophize as you
may upon the subject. What a glorious
escape have we made from remaining
forever in the womb Of nonentity
Let us congratulate one another, then,
that we have the lot Of living, moving,
and having a being on this terra
queous globe. ""


Many of you imagine that you are
born to ill-luck, and seem to strive
your prettiest to foster your ridiculous
fancies. You will have it that others
reap richer harvests from the field of
chance than yourselves that, when
it rains bean -poridge your dishes are
always bottom upwards; when it
SHOWS Genesee -four, the wind blows
it to your neighbours door and when
it halls hulled corn, you have no milk
to eat it with. You find q pistoreen
in the street: "Just my luck!" you
exclaim, as you pocket the disap-
pointment, "if anybody else had
found it, it would have been quarter,
sure!" If you feel for knife in the
dark, among Il peck of knives and
forks, You are certain to get hold of a
fork. What ever you do, and wher-
ever you go, everything works against
you, according to your thinking; but,
in accordance with my humble opinion,
You work against things more than
things labor against you. You labor
under mistaken idea if you think to
the contrary. The man who petitioned
to have the lamp-posts removed be-
cause they interfcred with him in
his nocturnal pcrambulations, con-
sidered himselfa victim of ill-luck.
He might have been so; but the poor
lamp posts had more reason to com
plain of hard rubs than himself.


! have to write for your editication,
and perhaps amusement. am lucky
when by chance have good article,
and get half a handful of genuine cop
pers in return, but, us always expect
more or less bad ones in the heap, /
AM never disappointed. bag the lot,
without pausing to questionize rs to
whether any other writer would have
been cursed or blest with the same
luck. had he been in my boots. So
should you take matters easy for, re-
collect that Fortune never picks out q
particular individual to smile upon,
nor selects Il certain portion upon
which to cast her spiteful frowns. The
fact is this, my friends; rather than
depend upon labor, You are too apt to
rely upon luck; and when the latter
betrays your confidence, you owe it a
grudge that time never can pay.


To test your luck, don't throw dice
nor buy lottery tickets but put your
hand to the plough, and hold on or
drive the cattle, and let somebody
else hold-but be sure that you do
one or the other, and the end thereof
shall he fortunate. Expect a bar Of
iron to melt with the breath Of a
southern wind-a seaman's whistle to
calm the excited ocean-a town on fire
to be extinguished with woman's
tears the stars to be blown out by u
September gale. You may expect
these to happen, if you like, but don't
suppose that cook luck will keep COM
pany with q loafer who is too lazy to
work, and SO depends upon the pre-
carious crumbs of chance. If you
firmly believe in an unalterable decree
Of luck, you will have more of the bad
sort plastered to your remembrance
then were ever feathers attached to a
fresh coat Of tar. Mondays and Fri
days will enter into a conspiracy
against you; all your new moons will
be seen over the left shoulder; squir-
rels will run across the road before
you, from the right to the left; you
will spill more salt at the table than
any other one, and the clouds will be
certain to take the opportunity to rain
when they catch you without an UNI
brella.


A murrain on all your superstitions
about luck one mortal is just as liable
to mishaps as another. Keep clear of
the fire, and you will escape being
burned go not near the the water,
and there is no danger Of getting
drowned; look not for the appalitioDs
Of ill-luck, and you will see but few
of them, at the most, and they, like
all other ghosts, possess more power
to scare than haym. So mote it be!


Charles Clinton.


From the Iberville Pioneer and News.l