ibility
of success. Napoleon on the plains of Champagne, sometimes fighting
two battles in one day, first defeating the Russians and then turning
on the Austrians, is an illustration of this energy. The Duke of
Brunswick, idling away precious time when he invaded France at the
outbreak of the first Revolution, is an example of the contrary.
Activity beats about a cover like an untrained dog, never lighting on
the covey. Energy goes straight to the bird at once and captures it."

CHAPTER XVII

SUCCESS BUT SELDOM ACCIDENTAL.

A man may leap into sudden fortune at a bound, and without effort or
foresight, but it is doubtful if any great permanent success ever was
the outcome of blind chance.

The old adage, "Trust to luck," like many other adages that time has
kept in unmerited circulation, is a bad one. The man who trusts to
luck for his clothing is apt to wear rags, and he who depends on it
for food is sure to go hungry.

We hear a great deal about the wonderful things that have been done
by chance, but we seldom take the time to examine them. We read that
sir Isaac Newton, sitting in his garden one day, "Chanced to see an
apple fall to the ground," and this set him to thinking, and he
discovered the laws of gravitation. New, ever since the first apple
fell from the first tree in Eden, men have been watching that very
commonplace occurrence. We might extend the field so as to embrace
oranges, coconuts and all the fruits and nuts which, in every land
and through all the long centuries of man's existence, have been
falling to the ground--not by chance, however, yet they set no men to
thinking, simply because not one of the millions of men who "chanced"
to see the incident, "chanced" to have the reasoning powers of the
great English scientist. If the apple, instead of falling to the
ground, had shot up, without visible cause, to the sky, then the
dullest observer would have wondered, even if he did not attempt to
find an explanation. The falling of the apple in Newton's garden was
not a chance, but an ordinary incident, which was made much of in the
mind of an extraordinary man.

Watt "chanced" to see the lid of the kettle in his mother's kitchen
lifted by the steam within, and this incident we are asked to believe
was the origin of the engine invented by that great man. If no one
else had ever witnessed a like phenomenon, then we might give some
consideration to the element of chance. It was in the brain of Wat