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Beveridge, Albert Jeremiah, 1862-1927

"The Young Man and the World"


Life ain't the holding of a good hand,
But
The playing of a poor hand well."
And this is nothing more than our frontier statement of the parable of
the talents. After all, it is not what we have, but what we make out
of what we have that counts in this world of work. And, what's more,
that is the only thing that ought to count.


IV
THE NEW HOME

Your father made the old home. Prove yourself worthy of him by making
the new home. He built the roof-tree which sheltered you. Build you a
roof-tree that may in its turn shelter others. What abnormal egotism
the attitude of him who says, "This planet, and all the uncounted
centuries of the past, were made for _me_ and nobody else, and I will
live accordingly. I will go it alone."
"I wish John had not married so young," said a woman of wealth,
fashion, and brilliant talents in speaking of her son. "Why, how old
was he?" asked her friend. "Twenty-five," said she; "he ought to have
waited ten years longer." "I think not," was the response of the
world-wise man with whom she was conversing. "If he got a good wife he
was in great luck that he did not wait longer." "No," persisted the
mother, "he ought to have taken more time 'to look around.


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