tion of business, to the city, to the country, to accidents, to old age, to birth, to death.
Man is like a canoeist directing his course through waves. One after another he meets them. They may be heavy and powerful or they may be light ruffles of a sunshiny day in midsummer. He must ride them all. To each one he must slant his craft, dipping his paddle at just the right moment, giving it just the right twist, putting just the right amount of force into the stroke. Each wave requires a decision. Let him fail in judgment, or in skill and strength, and his canoe may ship water until it fills, or, in the lift of some great breaker, overturn immediately.
And as upon the ocean, a wave occasionally approaches which overtops its fellows, so, too, in life there towers before the voyager not infrequently a 'ninth born son of the hurricane and the tide.' These waves call forth all the skill that the mariner possesses. He who rides them may well count himself a master of the sea, for while the lesser adaptations of life cause many a wreck, it is these which occasion the greatest disasters. Would one learn to appreciate the art of living, he need but observe the manner in which people meet these portentous relationships and events.
