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Show The Alan Who Failed. (Judge Goodwin in Goodwin', Weekly.) ' Wo read and hear every day of the men v. , succeed; who tells of the man who fails j Yet i, u few succeed; those who fail arc many. Thcv everywhere; they belong to all ranks of life."' Av.'i all the virtue-; do not belong to the successful on,-, though one might think they did from what is One of those who fail died here not long ago. ;,,' began to fail early in life, for his mother dir. I :l iew days after he was born, and there is no ot!:i.'r such calamity to fall upon a child. His .se-, failure was that he had a step-mother who did n ,-undorstand ,-undorstand children, and thirs this last state w,,, worse than the first. However, he grew and , discipline was mostly made up of hard knocks. But his brain was clever. He picked up m. learning than any other youth of his acquaint;,!:, n and age. Indeed, his books were well nigh his company, and they were enough, for. as he road. t bitterness of his life and the squalor of hi- ul. roundings seemed to melt away, and. gatheri:-,-near and around him. the re seemed to conic , tial forms and in his car was the rhythm of ,. . ,, dies sweeter than the music of this world. If. tered young manhood with no well defined jl;ii; , cept that, as all good comes from laoor. u j and all progress, it was both his duty and his privilege privi-lege to work. He was capable, in every ,i where he was tried he acquitted himself witii h,..,;, ... and men said he was on the right path, tin-that tin-that leads to honest wealth and honest f;unr. 'J',,.,, a young girl crossed his path. There uciv ,, . j,,.,. prettier, brighter, better girls, but he con!, ,,. it. To him she was t ho only one. and she ph-.pu -aged him. Every day she bent all the iii-aiirai.pw , g) v at her command to lure him until the uc-haiitin. i' r ' I absorbed his whole nature. Then she uddfiilv for- 1 sook him ami married one who would nr !i;,vr. ;,, . strive for a fortune. The shock was aw ful to hii-i; the more pitiable because he uiiered no plaint. - lv.' no outward sign how deeply he was woundedhow the earth seemed dissolved under his feet andevew star had melted from the sky. He was like a mourner mourn-er whose grief is too deep to find relief in t.ir--. But he lived on because he felt it his dutv to live and to work and to do what he eoukl. And he wa gentler, kindlier, more patient and considerate .f others than ever, for sorrow to the unselfish brinir out a pity for the sorrows and weaknesses .f others. He entered upon a business life; when hp ; seemed on the sure and swift way to sueee--, ;l flood came and swept away all that he hail. If tried again, beginning at the lowest round, nnl -his next enemy was fire, that not only swept away I all that he had, but left him in debt. By his t.u't he paid the last cent of his indebtedness and k pr. on working, for he not only had a conscience U;r, he had faith in himself, and hope that never failed him. In leisure hours he read and studied, and to engage him in conversation was as good as to attend at-tend a learned man's lecture. In the meantime lie had been pushd across the continent, the milestones mile-stones of his journey being the misfortunes that, had marked the way; one to mark where his j.y died, another where his hopes received almost a death-wound, another where in the night while he slept his youth- died, and so absorbed was he that next morning when he took again to the trail hn did not. miss what had ceased to cheer him and give buoyancy to his steps. In the west, when he reached it, the ruling industry in-dustry was mining, so he freshened up all his knowledge of geology, took new lessons from the experience of those around him upon ore-forma tions and started torth to nnd a mine. Jle lounl several and worked for years holding his locations loca-tions and trying to get them in form to attract the attention and help of capital. But on one occasion, oc-casion, by a fall from a treacherous ladder, lie shattered an arm and a leg. and when, after long months of suffering, he once more got, about, he f found that his mines had been appropriated by others, and he was too feeble to fight, too poor ti contest the spurious claims set up to oust him. And now old age had come upon him and the visions vis-ions that had kept earth and sky radiant around and above him began to grow dim; his sleep was troubles, his morning awakenings were no longer filled with the peace which comes with man's abiding abid-ing faith in himsvlf. But there were no complainings. complain-ings. He met his friends in his old cheerful, gentb way. He tittered no reproaches against a hard fortune;' for-tune;' he still clung to his old belief that if a man does noti succeed it is his own fault, and so he. passed down the last slope and one morning it was . told that he was dead. The few friends that still remained gathered around him and tenderly gave his remains back to his mother earth, she folding him within her arms and shading his eyes frm the light. Then those friends had carried and placed upon his grave a great rough stone, smoothed one side a little and on the smoothed side they had these words embossed: I "Here sleeps a man who failed." I |