ears in the minds of some rise up over every event, and they fear to
attempt what most probably would be successful through their
timorousness; while a courageous, active man, will, perhaps with half
the ability, carry an enterprise to a prosperous termination.

1471

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly
happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time
has one advantage over every other--it is our own. Past opportunities
are gone; the future may never come to us.

--_Colton._

1472

To let slip a favorable opportunity is the greatest proof of imbecility.

1473

He loses all who loses the right moment.

1474

OPPORTUNITY.

Master of human destinies am I;
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts, and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late,
I knock unbidden once at every gate.
If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise
Before I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And those who follow me, gain every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save Death, but those who doubt, or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
Seek me in vain, and uselessly implore.
I answer not, and I return no more.

--_U. S. Senator John J. Ingalls, of Kansas._

1475

OPPORTUNITY.

There is no man whom Fortune does not visit at least once in his life;
but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the
door, and flies out at the window.

--_Cardinal Imperiali._

1476

_Didn't Know the Place._--A young man who left his native city to study
medicine in Paris, and had been applying his time and the paternal
remittances to very different purposes, received a visit from his
father, who intended making a short stay in the capital to inspect its
wonders. During an afternoon stroll together, the day after the elder's
arrival, the father and son happened to pass in front of a large
colonnaded building. "What is that?" said the senior, carelessly. "I
don't know, but we'll inquire," answered the student. On the query being
put to an official, he shortly replied: "That? It is the School of
Medicine."

1477

The opportunity is often lost by deliberating.