SUCCESS IN LIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2344, 20 October 1921, Page 4

SUCCESS IN LIFE.

THREE THINGS THAT COUNT.

LORD NORTHCLIFFE’S EXPERI-

ENCE.

(By D.J.Q. in the Sydney Daily

Telegraph.)

“Lord Northeliffe is in bed, sir, you cannot possibly see him tonight.”

“What, already!' Why, it is only a quarter past nine,’” protested the interviewer.

“True,” assented his Lordship’s personal attendant, “but he has had a tiring day, and you know we sail early in the morning.” The logic of this seemed unanswerable. But the reporter had another card up his sleeve. He played it.

“Please tell his Lordship,” he said, “that'an old Daily Mail man wants a ‘story’ from him on lines somewhat different to the ordinary newspaper interview.” • In the early days of the London Daily Mail no reporter who valued his job would return to the office without the “story” he had been sent to get, and the. writer felt that the founder of that newspaper, unless he 1 had changed very much would be the last man to turn him down.

The result was as he hoped, i He was conducted to the top floor .of the hotel, through a maze of narrow corridors, to a suit of rooms at the rear, overlooking the roofs of Sydney.

If his Lordship desired the privacy of an eagle’s nest he surely found it at the Wentworth. MARK TWAIN’S JEST.

Lord Northeliffe lay in bed, in the Australian hot-weather fashion — head to foot, and feet to head. He had been reading, ‘but on the visitor’s entry put down his book and resumed his large horn-rimmed glasses.

“Well, what’s the idea,” he asked, after an exchange of greetings. “The gem of it lies,” said the writer, “in Mark Twain’s reply to the young reporter who asked him to what he attributed his success in life.”

“I remember,” laughed Lord Northeliffe, “to the fact that when he was a newspaper reporter he got the sack.” “An. anecdote of our first Australian millionaire, James Tyson, also touches the question.” “I remember Tyson,” said Lord Northeliffe.

“After Tyson’s death,” explained the pressman, “an entry was found in his diary stating that a youth had written to him inquiring how he had made bis way in the world, and that he had replied simply, ‘By paying strict attention to. my own business.’ ”

The listener laughed heartily

“Now, there arc thousands of young people in Australia,” continued the interviewer, “who would like to put a similar question to your lordship, not from idle curiosity, but with the idea of gaining some inspiration that would help them in shaping their own careers, and my idea, was that I might serve as their mouthpiece. Of course, we would like something less epigrammatic than Tyson’s rejoinder.” WHEN FORTUNE CALLS.

“I catch your idea,” he replied, “but you don’t want me to talk anv more to-night?” “Not if 1 can be sure of getting a Jew minutes with you in the morning,” ventured the writer. “Very well, see me here at 8.50 in the morning.” Early morning brought its usual crop of callers to see the celebrated journalist, and getting to the eagle’s nest was reminiscent of the camel’s difficulty in penetrating the eye of the needle.

When the interviewer again had an opportunity of opening up the subject, minutes were of vaster importance than banknotes.

“From my experience of the value of life, dating from my 15th year,” began Lord Northeliffe “I have enme to the conclusion that the thyee elements making for success

are concentration of purpose, health (this above all), and the seizing of Dame Fortune when she makes the visit, which I believe she makes to everybody at least once in a lifetime.

“There are, of course, lucky and unlucky people,” continued his lordship, “but very often bad luck is the result of bad health, which warps or slows the judgment at a critical moment.

In Europe we are beginning' to suspect bad teeth as the. basic cause of nearly all the bad health, and care is being taken to see that children, from five or six years of age upwards, pay periodic visits to the dentist.

Then there is the luck attending one's birth-place. A man born in teeming Enlgand has nothing like the opportunity of a man born here in empty Australia, where both manual and professional .workers have additional good luck to start life well nourished and also energised by sunshine.

“When I cast my eyes back to the gloom and fog of the myriad anxious faces of the poorer districts of our great towns in England, I feel that Australians have no idea how well off they are. AN ENVIED PARADISE.

“Unfortunately for Australia, enquiring Orientals know all about it, and I have no doubt whatever it is their intention to burst out from their densely-populated lands and come here to share this paradise of plenty.

“People say I am a very depressing visitor,” concluded Lord North-

eliffe,” but you ask me what I feel about success in Australia. ‘Well, I think if Australia concentrates on the one thing that can save her —population —she may, perhaps, but only perhaps, achieve her glorious ideal of a White Australia.”