THE UNLUCKY MAN.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 571, 21 August 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE UNLUCKY MAN.

Sometimes even the most practical amor.g us are forced to doubt whether there be not, after all, such a thing in the world as blind, unreasonable Luck. Every town anrl village has it unfortunate man to gossip about and pity—the well-born, genial fellow who managed once to get through with a fortune, and is always just on the point of making another ; he live* by holding his head high, and keeping his hand in somebody else'* pocket. His is not the kind of ill-luck that we mean. Lack of business capacity, or of common sense, or sheer laziness will readily account for his downfall. But we now and theu meet a man for wh B'i misfortunes there really seems to be no r -ason. He ha 3 energy, industry, and usually a finer quality of brain than his neighbours. But he does not ' jet on.' The other clerks leave the office and become partners. The other doctors make a hit at an operation, or a trial; they get their name in the papers and secure a fashionable practice. The other literary men write a book whioh somehow tickles the popular fancy, and btcome famous; but he drudges on in the same dull, obscure rut, barely keeping soul and body together. Other men ■ find friends to help them over every ditch in the road ; but nobody recommends him for a Government place or indorses his notes, »r finds openings for his boys. He ■ goes through life more discouraged and resentful with every year, believing that he has worked hard to wrest the poor goods '-e has from a malignant and unwilling fate. Sometimes who'e families fall into this slough of ill-luck, and trudge on in it through one or two generation.". Oddly enough, tliedo unlucky people usually bolong to the educated, gentler class. They are the dropped stitches, the unjightly loose threads of the social web. They have, as a rule, refined tastes, a capacity for enjoyment in travel, music and art, which they have never had means to gratify. A goodly number of them, no doubt, read 'The Tribune' this morning; and they will acknowledge (for there is generally little sham or pretence about them) that they are not cheerful companions ; that their circle of intimates is limited to their children, whom they have made as cynical as thems Ives, an I to some tired, patient woman, on whom they daily whet the edge of theirdiscontent as mercilessl as though har heart were hard as a stone. As for God, they are apt to tell you, frequently enough, that they know little about Him. All they know is this blind, relentless Luck, who has forced them to trudge afoo', bespattered by the mud from the chariots of meaner men. Now what is the matter with these men ? Is it really true that God, who fitted the worm to succeed in his own place, has set up some human beings'as targets to be hurled down once and again for His own malignant pleasure? For that is precisely what this talk about ill-luck amounts to. Is it true that a just God has denied success to any man or woman ? If success means to grow rich, it is true. The acquirement of a sum which will command luxury in a city requires a peculiar faculty, just as does the painting of a great picture, or a scientific invention. It is sometimes more than energy, industry, or economy ; it is partly the keen eye to see the public needs, and the trick, too, of making the public talk of you and your wares. If you swim in the water you must know how to manage the water; if you fly iu the air you must know how to manage the air ; if you would rise among men you must know how to manage men. If one unlucky man I has found out that he has not this faculty, let him stop competing with those who have ; shift his place; go to a village where his energy and industry will command more material comfort. But he lacks more than money ; he has no friends. Now the reason, invariably, why a man is friendless is because he is not friendly. He is suspicious, cynical; he knows that he himself is capable of heroic love and fidelity (which probably is true), but he is quite sure the commonplace souls about him are not tit to return it. The world knows by instinct what a man thinks of it, and treats him accordingly. It is a very good-humoured, helpful world, on the whole, but it always is ready to leave a desert about the would-be Arab. His finer tastes and the consciousness of his own integrity make his Lazarus more morbid and bitter, and steadily remove happiness further' from him. We know of but one remedy for him, and we advise him to try it this Sunday morning. Your philosophy is only intense self-esteem ; that is the basis of half of our disasters ; come down from it and measure yourself with the half-dozen men to whom you think ' Luck' has been most kind. Moasure fairly not by what you have dreamed you could do, but by what you actually have done, for the world and your fellow-men. Then turn to this malignant God (who after all f;ave you this noble soul which has been thwarted) and measure what you have done for Him. You will be wakened up to new views of the case. You will be ready perhaps to learn His higher lesson, that money and fame are not success; that the man who conquers in this world is he who is matched like a gladi;itor against the hardest circumstances, and comes out with thews and muscles strengthened, fitted for the higher work and widrr chances which wait for us hereafter.— ' New York Tribune.'