e world has ever seen. Oh, Republican Simplicity, there are many, many
humbugs in the world, but none to which you need take off your hat!

LUCK

(NOTE.--This is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was
an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago, and who vouched for its
truth.--M.T.)

It was at a banquet in London in honour of one of the two or three
conspicuously illustrious English military names of this generation. For
reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and
titles, and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby, V.C.,
K.C.B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned
name! There say the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many
thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name
shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean battle-field, to remain for
ever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and
look at that demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the
reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty
that expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of his
greatness--unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring eyes fastened
upon him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling
out of the breasts of those people and flowing toward him.

The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine--clergyman now,
but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field, and as
an instructor in the military school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I
have been talking about, a veiled and singular light glimmered in his
eyes, and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me--indicating
the hero of the banquet with a gesture,--'Privately--his glory is an
accident--just a product of incredible luck.'

This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been
Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been
greater.

Some days later came the explanation of this strange remark, and this is
what the Reverend told me.

About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military academy at
Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections when young Scoresby
underwent his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick with
pity; for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely,
while he--why, dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was
evidently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless