Sons of Fortune [pp. 133-139]

1873.) SOA~S OF FO1?TUATE.`33
SONS OF FORTUNE.
HE adventurer, as commonly Un- just. He merely wants his own-mean derstood, is well named-so well ing all he can get-and they who are
that he must have presided at his own overridden in the execution of his purchristening. He has s6vereign faith in pose, he considers simply unfortunate,
arriving at, instead of achieving results. as if they had. fallen across the path of
To his own sanguine and eccentric mind the elements. His aim is the assurance
he seems fore-ordained to Fortune's fa- of distinction, the prosperity of his envors; and his conduct converges to the terprise, whatever it may be. Between
idea of his destiny. His hypothesis is his glance at the target and hitting the
as false as his etymology is correct; and white, the intermediate issues are of liton its falseness he rears stately plans tle consequence, and external claims
which can not help but fail from the nat- hardly to be reckoned.
ure of their foundation. There are high adventurers also. All
In the new mythology, the adventurer progressive and reformatory spirits, all
would be the love-child of Mercury, born large and catholic characters, and all phi from the embraces of a golden cloud. losophers and heroes, have in them some
His crafty father would incite him to dash of the adventurer, but are kept in
triumph, and his airy mother would com- wholesome restraint by considerations
fort him in adversity. He would per- beyond themselves-by ends of general
form the labors of Hercules by deputy, significance. Some of the most distin and the heroisms of Perseus by adroit- guished personages of history-some
ness. In the division of the globe, he whom the ages have embalmed-have
would reserve to himself the fairest king- been ~dventurers; but grand and stable
doms, and touch the heavens with the success baptized them anew. When
finger of his fancy. they passed beneath the arch of victory,
The most hopeful and elastic of mor- they were habited in purple, and hailed
tals, he sees the sun behind the black- as C~sar; and those wont to name them
est clouds, and the hovering halcyon with irreverence were awed to silence.
amid the wildest bursts of the storm. They are adventurers while arranging
His mind is disordered by excess of ex- their campaign, moving against the foe,
pectation, as his moral code is from a contending in the field. Triumph on
lack of conscientiousness. Of the three their crests exalts their stature, and bedivis5ons of time he regards only the stows more honored titles. Then the
future. What he may have accomplish- line of their march is strewed with flowed acts but as a spur; what he possess- ers, and so thickly, too, that its unclean
es grows tame by tangibility. The out- places are hidden from sight.
lying is his domain; the unreached is The greatest of the ancients and the
his province. Born to great things, in greatest of the moderns-Julius C~sar
his own estimation, he is inclined to and Napol~on Bonaparte-were adventoverlook such trifles as the feelings and urers; but such splendid ones that they
the rights of others, when il~ey are ob- have been ranked as demi-gods. They
stacles to his advancement. He is not had the rarest genius, the strongest
at all malignant, nor is he primarily un- magnetism, the finest insight. They