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NIGHT OWLS.

(From the Liberal Review,) There is a great deal of undeveloped talent in the world, notwithstanding the improved and extensive system of education which is now in vogue, and it is not too much to say that most people might achieve distinction in some particular pursuit or other if they went to work with a will. In saying this we do not mean to imply that the majority of persons possess genius and could, if they chose to take trouble, get their names inscribed on the roll of fame ; but we do intend to assert that it is possible for nearly everybody to rise above that low level of mediocrity upon which at present they seem content to stand. Not a few men who have distinguished themselves possessed at ' the outset of their careers fair but not brilliant attainments, and their success has been due to arduous and sustained labor. Of course, it may be said that the capacity to work is as much a gift as is pure genius, if indeed it is not genius in another form ; but we are not inclined to fall in with this view of the case. Everyone > ' possesses a will of some kind, and the man who ">. chooses to exercise his will, and who sets * himself down to perform a certain thing, rims a very good chance of achieving success. What he has chiefly to be careful about is to avoid engaging in an uncongenial pursuit, and not to proceed any further in one when he lacks the consciousness that it rests but with himself whether he reaches\that goal to the attainment of which his efforts are tending. At the same time he must not fall into the mistake of imagining that the attainment of any particular object by him is impossible because there stand in his way a number of obstacles which it will cost him no little amount of trouble to remove. This, it may be remarked, is an error that is often made; certain individuals have an unfortunate talent for misconstruing a hatred of taking trouble into a want of capacity on their parts, and thereupon contentedly settling themselves down to a life of idleness, the result being that instead of finding the hours of each day too few to enable them to do what they would like to perform, they are driven to

adopt a variety of desperate devices in order to kill time. ..,,.- Under these circumstances, it is pitiable in the extreme that the majority of modern young Englishmen are essentially do-nothing-ists, whose talents for want of e>ercise become so emasculated, that their presence cannot be detected. The little knowledge that they acquired at school, is allowed gradually to slip from their heads, instead of being constantly added to. The fine arts are to them so many mysteries, and the vast field of literature, with all its glorious wealth of imagination, is to them a practically unexplored region, which they have small inclination to To mechanics, they are indifferent; and at science they turn up their noses in disgust. Yet, the probability is, that in some of the departments mentioned, they might labor with pleasure and profit, and in time be enabled to- turn out good work themselves. As it is, they lead aimless, worthless lives, the only serious business in which they engage beinc that of money-making. When they are away from, their offices and workshops, the places in which they are, apparently, least happy are their homes. Possibly, the ; reason of this is that they have nothing particular to do when they are in them and that time, consequently, hangs heavily on their hands, It is not surprising that they are led to forsake their domestic firesides for less refining quarters, and that they are induced to plunge in dissipation of a more or less coarse character. They acquire a passion for billiards. Now there is nothing wrong in this game, it bein<* essentially a scientific one, but it is not pleasant to reflect that there are in most large towns more young men who know how to properly handle a cue than know how to talk and write their own language correctly, or are able to enumerate the principal events in English History. Moreover; the associations which surround billiards, except in private houses, are by no means of a satisfactory character, most billiard-rooms being frequented by a greater or lesser number of scoundrels who fatten upon the follies of their brethren, and the game leading to gambling, drinking, and, as played in public, having a tendency to develop the worst traits in men's characters.

Apart from all this, billiard-rooms are essentially .unhealthy places',' and consequently their Jiabiiv.es are frequently injured physically and morally at one and the same time. The publichouse has also become a popular place of resort of the youth of the present day, while theatres and music halls are largely patronised. We are not among those who see nothing hut wrong in these places. On the contrary, we are of opinion that they are of good service to the community, and that their influence is often healthy. But a. man can have toomuch of the sort of thing -which they provide, and their most-persistent patrons are apt to derive an amount of mischief from them which occasional visitors are not likely to experience. Their constant supporters are liable to be brought in contact with company of a certain kind, and exposed to certain associations, and it must be remembered that no man is sufficiently strong to be systematically placed in the way of temptation and to count on corning out of the "ordeal perfectly scatheless. It is not difficult to distinguish a man who has passed through experiences of the kind indicated. As a, rule, his appearance is more or less dissipated arid jaded. His moral tone is low, and he strikeayau at once as being intensely selfish. It is his custom to speak sneeringly of women, in the general purity of whom he does not profess to ; believe, and he is in the habit of talking mock- \ ingly of everything that is raised above the sphere in which he moves. Politics he does not often profess to take an interest in; and; when he does, however rabidly Liberal, or intensely Conservative he may be, he resolutely declines to \mt himself to any trouble in order that his party may be advanced. His talk is of billiards, liquors, the demimonde, and ths more outre of public entertainments. Though he is ignorant of what is taking place: in the literary, artistic, and scientific worlds, ho will tell you at once what amusements are on, what actresßes are shaky in reputation—may be pardoned all the lies that he tells and all the groundless slanders that he circulates —and about other matters of which perhaps the less one knows the better.; Yet, the probability is, that these men are wellmeaning after a fashion. They have no wish,' at any rate, to do positive harm to anyone.; Perhaps, however, they are not particular who suffers, so long as their own interests and their: own passions are gratified. At the commencement, they ' begin to descend the slope of Avernus, becaußS they have nothing particular to do, and becauso their natures crave after excitement, they not having sufficient discri-i nunation to distinguish between that excite 4

m-ent which is legitimate andhealthy, and that which is the reverse.. Hence the series of disastrous blunders which they make, blunders which have a tendency to render their perpetrators bad husbands and indifferent fathers. ;■

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM18750218.2.21

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4342, 18 February 1875, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,264

NIGHT OWLS. New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4342, 18 February 1875, Page 3

NIGHT OWLS. New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4342, 18 February 1875, Page 3

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