"LUCK."

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 1 (Supplement)

"LUCK."

BY W. H. P. SIABSDON. TnERE is a fine irony in human affairs, since so 'much depends upon the working of that subtle force termed chance, whose unforeseen and consequently unestimated conditions shape our fortunes. 'Tis true some folks do not believe in chance, but see design behind everything. Ruskini says: "Chances, as they are now called, I regard as guidances, and even, if rightly understood, commands, which, as far as I have read history, the best and sincerest men think providential." But the trouble is that people aro not able to see far enough ahead to realise the value of the chance when it happens their way. Tho world is divided into the lucky and the unlucky. Good fortune and bad are necessary to a man to make him adroit and capable. Few men are equal to the emergencies of life, who have not experienced some of its vicissitudes. In general good and bad fortune are found, severally, to visit those who have the most of the one or the other. The prosperous man has, usually, nothing but lucky additions, whilst those in adversity find only newvisitations of misfortune. The Fates, though they number but three, appear to possess endless capacity for producing kaleidoscopic chances. Rarely do they weave two lives alike. " It's better to be born lucky than rich" runs the proverb. Just what Luck is nobody knows; but this thing seems certain that the man endowed with natural ability only has to make way for tho one who possese6 the " gift." Two men dreaming of success and happy victory, set out side by side in the race of life. Til! they come to the first cross-roads th&y keep together stride for stride. But there, a choice having to be made, they drift apart. The lucky man takes the right turning, while his cleverer friend makes choice of the wrong one. And then, as fairy godmothers are not in evidence in these days the irretrievable step having been taken the result is inevitable. Whenever you seo a man who has pushed himself prominently, head and shoulders above the crowd, rest assured the intangible, undofinable force. Luck, has placed him in the position. Wisdom is never the gift of chance, but men are in the minority who caro about being wise if only Luck has given them a steady and ample current account at- the bank. Should you ask men who have, unexpectedly, "struck oil" and struck it rich, how they gained their shekels, will they tell you that Luck piled them up? Never. They will tell you their success is due to their own splendid virtues—getting up with the lark, emulating the busy bee, and out-anting the antewhich they studiously practised in the days of their youth. Luck, indeed ! Luck had !no hand in it! Alone they did it! Hard work alone, unaided by Luck, but rarely makes a man wealthy. ELse the homyhanded would be millionaires, and Sisyphus, who rolled the stone eternally, a iiiulti-Crcesus. Says a recent cablegir m from Victoria, " A nugget of goldweighing 210 ounces, besides other smaller ones of appreciable size, has been unearthed by two lucky | prospectors at Taranagulla, in a claim rej cently abandoned by the Poseidon Gold j Mining Company." Machinery had been erected, and a :onsiderable amount of capital expended in developing and working the claim, but all to no purpose. The company having given up, the prospectors stepped in and picked up, almost immediately, small specimens, nuggets of a few ounces and then their big nest egg. Well might they exclaim with the shepherd in '• A Winter's Tale :" This is a fairy gold, boy! We are lucky, boy! In ancient times and among all the peoples the practice of wearing charms to drivo away ill-luck, or to bring good fortune, was almost universal. Of these amulets were the most varied. They ranged from specimens culled from all three of Nature's kingdom to manufactured articles, such as diminutive copies of the Koran. Phylacteries and Mezuzahs were Jewish, charms, the essential part of each being a text from the book of Shaddai The former ' wero usually worn strapped to the left 1 arm, near the heart ; the latter, enclosed in a glass cylinder, were affixed to the right hand doorpost of the bouse. In the East the talisman is still held to possess wonderful potentiality for averting evil, and, nearer home, our Island folks wear 1 their otoliths with the same object. But nowadays, wo of the Saxon race, set small store, except as ornaments, on the swastika, the Sanscrit token; or on the fylfot, the four-armed cross of Thor; or on the ■ cross with a handle, the Crux Ansata—all ' of which in times gone by were held in high esteem, as bringers of good fortune, ' or as warders-off of that which was fell. Liko everything else in Australasia the , realm of topsy-turvydom, Luck delights in surprises, and comes just where seemingly it should not. It is on record that ' a geologist of repute averred that no gold would ever lie found at tho Thames ; the rock formation forbade it. A long-ex-ploded inaccuracy! The biggest strokes of luck in mining, in sport, in adventure frequently fall under these Austral skies to the raw, ( unsophisticated new-chum. As to the rest of us, we all, to some extent, at least,- await with measured patience, the decision of destiny, the croupier of the large roulette table of life. Here and there one is successful ; but for tho ninety and nine their luck is threadbare to the end of lean as Chiche-vache; Chaucer's fabulous cow of enormous size, whoso food was patient wives, and which was, therefore always in very poor condition.