MBS OF COMFORT '
To the Man Who Has a Late Start in His Career
By Samuel Gardiner Ayres
Illustrated by R. Tandler
HERE are some men who for various reasons
have been unable to get a start until late in life.
In' some cases they were traveling the wrong
road. In others other duties delayed or hin
dered in the necessary preparation. The road
is much harder to follow when such a course lies ahead. If
one begins earlier in life, enthusiasms, inspirations and dreams
help along.
There arevmany who achieve their success late in life.
More than one successful writer has begun a career after he
was 50 years of age. Noah Webster began his great .diction
ary after he was 50 and had begun to wear glasses. Some
who have started to complete their education late in life have -made
a great success of the remainder of their lives. We re
member a man who graduated from college at the age of 45
and had nearly twenty years of great usefulness which he
could not have attained without his college course: I fact
he could not haye held the position which he did without hav
ing been a college man. j i
So many in these days think it impossible for a man to
begin late and lucceed that often due encouragement is not
given. What some have done, others can do.; Almost every
pollege in the land has students attending it who have passed
beyond the age of 30 men who are belated in preparation, or
who have decided to change their life work. Some men have
made the bulk of their fortunes after middle life. The main
thing is to keep the enthusiasm of life and not become discour
aged. Longfellow had this in mind when he wrote:
But why, you ask me, should this tale be told
To men grown old, or growing old?
It is too late ! Ah, nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers
When each had numbered Wore than fourscore years.
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had but begun his "Characters of Men.'
' Chaucer at Woodstock with the nightingales
At sixty wrote the "Canterbury Tales.'
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed "Faust" when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions, but tbey show
How far the gulf stream of our youth may flow
. Into the arctic regions of our lives, - ,,
' . Where little else than life survives.
'If old men can do such thing& you who are youngefscan
' certainly do as welL Begin at once if you have not done so.
If you have, take. courage and go on to the nd. You will win. '
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