enmeshed in the web of circumstance that we lose sight of
it; but give us here and there, and now and then, some little foretaste
of this golden age, that we may the more patiently and hopefully await
its coming!

IS THE GAME WORTH THE CANDLE?

JAMES E. SHEPARD

A man's life depends upon his emotions, his aspirations, his
determinations.

A young man, somebody's son, starts out with the determination that the
world is indebted to him for a good time. "Dollars were made to spend. I
am young, and every man must sow his wild oats and then settle down. I
want to be a 'hail fellow well met' with every one."

With this determination uppermost in his life purpose he starts out to
be a good-timer. Perhaps some mother expects to hear great things of her
boy, some father's hopes are centered in him, but what does that matter?
"I am a good-timer." From one gayety to another, from one glass to
another, from one sin to another, and the good-timer at last is broken
in health, deserted by friends, and left alone to die. Thus the "man
about town" passes off the stage. When you ask some of his friends about
him, the answer is, "Oh, John was all right, but he lived too fast. I
like good times as well as anyone, but I could not keep up with John."
Was the game worth the candle?

Two pictures came before my mind: two cousins, both of them young men.
One started out early in life with the determination of getting along
"easy," shirking work, and looking for a soft snap. His motto was, "The
world owes me a living, and I am going to get mine." He was employed
first by one firm and then by another; if anything that he considered
hard came along, he would pay another fellow to do the work and he "took
things easy." It was not long before no one would hire him. He continued
to hold the idea that the world was indebted to him and furthermore, he
arrogated a belief that what another man had accumulated he could borrow
without his knowledge. He forged another man's name, was detected, and
sentenced to the penitentiary and is now wearing the badge of felony and
shame--the convict's stripes. Is the game worth the candle?

The other cousin started out with a determination altogether different.
He believed with Lord Brougham, that if he were a bootblack he would
strive to be the best bootblack in England. He began in a store as a
window-cleaner, and washed windows so well that they sparkled like
diamonds under the sun. As a clerk, no c