Lord love me! when I think of the chances that a man has in your twentieth century, opportunities for amusement, for adventure and romance, I feel that the Raleighs, the Hudsons or the Cooks of the past have great cause to envy you.

Just look at your aeroplanes! What delightful surprises I could have devised in my time for my amiable friend Monsieur Chauvelin (or was it Chambertin?) could I but have equiped my beautiful 'Day-Dream' with a pair of silver wings! And what about your radio, your express trains, your motor cars and great liners, not to mention your trusty friends, the telephone, electricity. Ye gods above, what an array!

At a casual glance it seems to me that ideas and ideals have changed, and that the vast number of people who complain that life to-day is dull and that it has none of the savour of romance which made it so joyous a thing in the time of rapiers and ruffles, are making it dull for themselves. Surely, if they would but look around they could find romance enough and to spare in the thousand new wonders of this busy modern world. But the demmed dull dogs, the croakers and the kill-joys are having it all their own way, it seems to me. They appear to be in the fashion, and Fashion's rule was always autocratic. Which-- as things have turned out with you--is a vast pity.

Why have you no 'real slap-up Corinthians' now that progress is offering you new and exciting adventures every day? In my time most young men of fashion or spirit could show a neat hand and foot in the boxing-ring against the doughtiest opponent; they could ride anything ever foaled and drive against the Devil himself; and they were never backward, either, with a witty word or a gallant action.

Nor was this prowess confined to those whom Mammon had blessed. The 'prentice could sing a song or try a fall with anybody; the shopkeeper could tot up faults and virtues as well as ledgers; your tailor had a tongue as sharp in trenchant wit as his scissors were in cutting cloth.

And now, despite the fact that you possess all these new, romantic, exciting, delightful gifts from modern inventiveness, those of you who do not keep your nose close to the grindstone of money-grubbing adopt a silly air of blasé ignorance on the ground that knowledge is really a bore.

Now do not taunt me with the fact that I myself in my own time did ape the inanities and drolleries which were then the fashion, and no one ever wore a more vacant face of yawned more persistently than I did. I admit the soft impeachment, while reminding you that I only adopted my inane pose as a cloak in order to throw dust in the eyes of my friends at home and my enemies abroad. Whereas you young men of to-day seem to make a point of knowing very little more than you pretend, and of being bored with the little you do know.

If I were advising a young man of to-day on the way to make the most of his life--and, after all, it is the beauty of living that counts far more than the mere accumulation of riches--I would tell him to look wide, to be always ready and never afraid. The world is wider now than heretofore--a man can go adventuring and fortune-making across the seas. Modern business is so inter-related now among all the nations of the world that there is not a trade or profession which does not need foreign representatives.

I would tell him to learn, as far as lies in his power, to speak other languages besides his own. There is plenty of romantic thrill to be got out of a cheap trip across the Channel or the North Sea, and the thrill becomes greater still if you can understand what they say over there, catch their snatches of conversation, put in a word or two for yourself. It's no use saying: 'Oh, I'm not a linguist. I never could speak a word of French.' You never know what you can do till you try. Besides, you need not be a linguist to exchange a few words with pretty Mamzelle at Ostend or Boulogne, or the kind hostess who has made you comfortable in your holiday lodgings.

And don't forget that in life's adventure the man or woman who can speak a language or two besides his own is sure of good money. So put up your fists, m'dears, not to meet a prize-fighter, but to tackle those few words of French or German which you can assimilate quite easily if you put your mind to it.

Take your chance in that as in everything else. Don't be afraid. So long as you are doing a clean, honourable, wholesome thing take your chance of success and face boldly the possibility of failure. There is a marvellous feeling of satisfaction and pride in having striven after something that is worth while, ever if that something is only your increased self-respect or your joy in having accomplished a task that at first seemed beyond your strength.

I would also advise your modern young man to spend a few moments every day in self-communion. Self-examination is so good for one. Let him ask himself the question: 'Am I a man? Can I, if opportunity arises, go out into the world? Am I brave enough to take risks? Is my heart stout enough not to flinch should danger of failure threaten me?'

At first probably your little self-satisfied ego will reply affirmatively and complacently to all the questions, and will add with a sigh the usual rider: 'But, of course, luck never does come my way. Look at So-and-So! The luck he had. No wonder he got on.'

But, believe me, those feeble arguments will gradually give place to more searching self-examination. The queries: 'Am I a man? Am I brave and self-reliant?' will be followed by a more insistent: 'Am I?' And out of a true understanding of self, will come that very self-reliance, that grit, that pluck which is the one and only road to success, and which will as surely as you live lead you to the romantic heights of content, of joy, and above all of love. You will find that you have in your life to-day a hundred per cent more romance than ever came my way, even though your romance wears a sombre coat and wields a fountain-pen where we wore ruffles and buckled shoes, and for the most part were compelled to sit at home, for we had neither cars nor aeroplanes to take us about the world, nor means to learn all its wonders.