Another evil arising from this talk about luck is that at last we actually believe in it. Once under the influence of this notion, we exercise no caution or foresight. "Luck," we say, "will bring us through." Fortunately for our future and permanent success, luck does nothing of the sort. In the long-run, luck is nowhere. You may have heard of games of chance--gambling games, as they are styled--and of lotteries and the like. You have heard of people being lucky at them. The professional gambler and lottery-keeper know better than that; they know that even in throwing dice there is very little luck. The man who is lucky to-day is unlucky to-morrow: it is in reality skill or trickery and not luck that enables the professional gambler to pursue his career.
Lucky people, in fact, are people who have thoroughly trained themselves for the battle of life. They have eyes open to perceive a coming danger, and have learned how to avoid it; they recognize a difficulty, and know how to overcome it; they see an opportunity, and know how to make use of it; and they are ready, with all their faculties alert, to seize it before it has gone forever. Their success is visible to every eye, and arrests our attention at once. What we do not see, very often what we will not see, but deliberately shut our eyes to, is the foresight they exercise, the careful training they have undergone, the long practice which has made them perfect.
There is nothing brilliant or showy about this practice and training, and therefore we have not noticed them. But they are there, nevertheless. To all of us, every day of our lives, opportunities present themselves which pass without our heeding them, or, if we see them, without our having the courage and skill to avail ourselves of them. We let them fly, never to return, because we are not ready, and then we cry, "Just like our luck!" As Shakspeare says,
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
Away with your notions of luck. Be manly, and trust to work. Do your duty, and let luck do its worst.
[1] Begun in No. 101, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.
Before Steve Harrison and his friend left the ruins of the ancient town behind them, they had decided that they were going away from a complete solitude--a place where even wild Indians did not very often come.