CHAPTER FOUR
THE COURAGE OF FACING CONSEQUENCES
YOUNG people sometimes play the game of "Consequences." The sport increases in proportion to the strangeness of the results.
Perhaps the reason the game has so many attractions is the fact that life is a long story of consequences.
There are people who do not like to play the game of life seriously because they say the consequences of self-denial and self-sacrifice are too uncertain; they prefer the cowardice of inaction to the courage of purposeful living.
The folks worth while are those who, refusing to be troubled by what may or may not be the consequences of their acts, still have the pluck to go on with what they know is right. Let the results be what they may, they propose to be straightforward and true. This is the courage that counts.
There may be uncertainty as to the specific form the results of their stand may take, yet that result is sure to be pleasing and helpful.
I
VENTURING
When Washington Irving was about to return to America from Madrid, where he had been minister of the United States to the court of Spain, the Philadelphia house that had been publishing his books, discouraged by the decreasing sales, sent word to him that the public was not able to appreciate his books, and they would have to allow them to go out of print. The books had been printed directly from the type, so there were no plates which another publisher might use to bring out further editions at small expense.
The author, who was then sixty-five years of age, sorrowfully accepted the verdict of his publisher, and planned to take desk-room in the New York office of his brother, John Treat Irving, where he hoped to make a living by the practice of law.