Success | Page 6

their way. They develop that terrible disease
known as "the genius of the untried." Their case is almost as pitiful or
ludicrous as that of the man of very moderate abilities whom drink or
some other vice has rendered quite incapable. There will still be found
men to whisper to each other as he passes, "Ah, if Brown didn't drink,
he might do anything."
Far different will be the mental standpoint of the man who really means
to succeed. He will banish the idea of luck from his mind. He will
accept every opportunity, however small it may appear, which seems to
lead to the possibility of greater things. He will not wait on luck to
open the portals to fortune. He will seize opportunity by the forelock
and develop its chances by his industry. Here and there he may go
wrong, where judgment or experience is lacking. But out of his very
defeats he will learn to do better in the future, and in the maturity of his

knowledge he will attain success. At least, he will not be found sitting
down and whining that luck alone has been against him.
There remains a far more subtle argument in favour of the gambling
temperament which believes in luck. It is that certain men possess a
kind of sixth sense in the realm of speculative enterprise. These men, it
is said, know by inherent instinct, divorced from reasoned knowledge,
what enterprise will succeed or fail, or whether the market will rise or
fall. They are the children of fortune.
The real diagnosis of these cases is a very different one from that put
forward by the mystic apostles of the Golden Luck. Eminent men who
are closely in touch with the great affairs of politics or business often
act on what appears to be a mere instinct of this kind. But, in truth, they
have absorbed, through a careful and continuous study of events both in
the present and the past, so much knowledge, that their minds reach a
conclusion automatically, just as the heart beats without any stimulus
from the brain. Ask them for the reasons of their decision, and they
become inarticulate or unintelligible in their replies. Their conscious
mind cannot explain the long-hoarded experience of their subconscious
self. When they prove right in their forecast, the world exclaims, "What
luck!" Well, if luck of that kind is long enough continued it will be best
ascribed to judgment.
The real "lucky" speculator is of a very different character. He makes a
brilliant coup or so and then disappears in some overwhelming disaster.
He is as quick in losing his fortune as he is in making it. Nothing
except Judgment and Industry, backed by Health, will ensure real and
permanent success. The rest is sheer superstition.
Two pictures may be put before the believer in luck as an element in
success. The one is Monte Carlo--where the Goddess Fortune is chiefly
worshipped--steeped in almost perpetual sunshine, piled in castellated
masses against its hills, gaining the sense of the illimitable from the
blue horizon of the Mediterranean--a shining land meant for clean
exercise and repose. Yet there youth is only seen in its depravity, while
old age flocks to the central gambling hell to excite or mortify its jaded
appetites by playing a game it is bound to lose.
Here you may see in their decay the people who believe in luck,
steeped in an atmosphere of smoke and excitement, while beauty of
Nature or the pursuits of health call to them in vain. Three badly lighted

tennis courts compete with thirty splendidly furnished casino rooms.
But of means for obtaining the results of exercise without the exertion
there is no end. The Salle des Bains offers to the fat and the jaded the
hot bath, the electric massage, and all the mechanical instruments for
restoring energy. Modern science and art combine to outdo the
attractions of the baths of Imperial Rome.
In far different surroundings from these were born the careers of the
living captains of modern industry and finance--Inchcape, Pirrie,
Cowdray, Leverhulme, or McKenna. These men believed in industry,
not in fortune, and in judgment rather than in chance. The youth of this
generation will do well to be guided by their example, and follow their
road to success. Not by the worship of the Goddess of Luck were the
great fortunes established or the great reputations made.
It is natural and right for youth to hope, but if hope turns to a belief in
luck, it becomes a poison to the mind. The youth of England has before
it a splendid opportunity, but let it remember always that nothing but
work and brains counts, and that a man can even work himself into
brains. No goddess will open to