,,success ,,by ,,lord ,,beaverbrook ,,second ,,edition ,,london ,,stanley ,,paul ,,co #ca ,,essex ,,street1 ,,strand1 ,w4,c4#b ,first published in ,november #aiba2 ,reprinted ,november #aiba ,,publishers' ,,note ,the contents of this volume originally appeared as weekly articles by ,lord ,beaverbrook in the ,sunday ,express4 ,they aroused so much interest1 and so many applications were received for copies of the various articles1 that it was decided to have them collected and printed in volume form4 ,he who buys ,success1 reads and digests its precepts1 will find this inspiring volume a sure will-tonic4 ,it will nerve him to be up and doing4 ,it will put such spring and go into him that he will make a determined start on that road which1 pursued with perseverance1 leads onwards and upwards to the desired goal--,,success4 ,,preface ,the articles embodied in this small book were written during the pressure of many other affairs and without any idea that they would be published as a consistent whole4 ,it is1 therefore1 certain that the critic will find in them instances of a repetition of the central idea4 ,this fact is really a proof of a unity of conception which justifies their publication in a collected form4 ,i set out to ask the question1 ,what is success in the affairs of the world--how is it attained1 and how can it be enjoyed8 ,i have tried with all sincerity to answer the question out of my own experience4 ,in so doing ,i have strayed down many avenues of inquiry1 but all of them lead back to the central conception of success as some kind of temple which satisfies the mind of the ordinary practical man4 ,other fields of mental satisfaction have been left entirely outside as not germane to the inquiry4 ,i address myself to the young men of the new age4 ,those who have youth also possess opportunity4 ,there is in the ,british ,empire to-day no bar to success which resolution cannot break4 ,the young clerk has the key of success in his pocket1 if he has the courage and the ability to turn the lock which leads to the ,temple of ,success4 ,the wide world of business and finance is open to him4 ,any public dinner or meeting contains hundreds of men who can succeed if they will only observe the rules which govern achievement4 ,a career to-day is open to talent1 for there is no heredity in finance1 commerce1 or industry4 ,the ,succession and ,death ,duties are wiping out those reserves by which old-fashioned banks and businesses warded off from themselves for two or three generations the result of hereditary incompetence4 ,ability is bound to be recognised from whatever source it springs4 ,the struggle in finance and commerce is too intense and the battle too world-wide to prevent individual efficiency playing a bigger and a better rle4 ,if ,i have given encouragement to a single young man to set his feet on the path which leads upwards to success1 and warned him of a few of the perils which will beset him on the road1 ,i shall feel perfectly satisfied that this book has not been written in vain4 ,,beaverbrook4 ,,contents ,i4 ,,success ,,ii4 ,,happiness3 ,,three ,,secrets ,,iii4 ,,luck ,,iv4 ,,moderation ,v4 ,,money ,,vi4 ,,education ,,vii4 ,,arrogance ,,viii4 ,,courage ,,ix4 ,,panic ,x4 ,,depression ,,xi4 ,,failure ,,xii4 ,,consistency ,,xiii4 ,,prejudice ,,xiv4 ,,calm ,i ,,success ,success--that is the royal road we all want to tread1 for the echo off its flagstones sounds pleasantly in the mind4 ,it gives to man all that the natural man desires3 the opportunity of exercising his activities to the full2 the sense of power2 the feeling that life is a slave1 not a master2 the knowledge that some great industry has quickened into life under the impulse of a single brain4 ,to each his own particular branch of this difficult art4 ,the artist knows one joy1 the soldier another2 what delights the business man leaves the politician cold4 ,but however much each section of society abuses the ambitions or the morals of the other1 all worship equally at the same shrine4 ,no man really wants to spend his whole life as a reporter1 a clerk1 a subaltern1 a private ,member1 or a curate4 ,downing ,street is as attractive as the oak-leaves of the field-marshal2 ,york and ,canterbury as pleasant as a dominance in ,lombard ,street or ,burlington ,house4 ,for my own part ,i speak of the only field of success ,i know--the world of ordinary affairs4 ,and ,i start with a contradiction in terms4 ,success is a constitutional temperament bestowed on the recipient by the gods4 ,and yet you may have all the gifts of the fairies and fail utterly4 ,man cannot add an inch to his stature1 but by taking thought he can walk erect2 all the gifts given at birth can be destroyed by a single curse4 ,like all human affairs1 success is partly a matter of predestination and partly of free will4 ,you cannot make the genius1 but you can either improve or destroy it1 and most men and women possess the assets which can be turned into success4 ,but those who possess the precious gifts will have both to hoard and to expand them4 ,what are the qualities which make for success8 ,they are three3 ,judgment1 ,industry1 and ,health1 and perhaps the greatest of these is judgment4 ,these are the three pillars which hold up the fabric of success4 ,but in using the word judgment one has said everything4 ,in the affairs of the world it is the supreme quality4 ,how many men have brilliant schemes and yet are quite unable to execute them1 and through their very brilliancy stumble unawares upon ruin8 ,for round judgment there cluster many hundred qualities1 like the setting round a jewel3 the capacity to read the hearts of men2 to draw an inexhaustible fountain of wisdom from every particle of experience in the past1 and turn the current of this knowledge into the dynamic action of the future4 ,genius goes to the heart of a matter like an arrow from a bow1 but judgment is the quality which learns from the world what the world has to teach and then goes one better4 ,shelley had genius1 but he would not have been a success in ,wall ,street--though the poet showed a flash of business knowledge in refusing to lend money to ,byron4 ,in the ultimate resort judgment is the power to assimilate knowledge and to use it4 ,the opinions of men and the movement of markets are all so much material for the perfected instrument of the mind4 ,but judgment may prove a sterile capacity if it is not accompanied by industry4 ,the mill must have grist on which to work1 and it is industry which pours in the grain4 ,a great opportunity may be lost and an irretrievable error committed by a brief break in the lucidity of the intellect or in the train of thought4 ,he who would be ,csar anywhere1 says ,kipling1 must know everything everywhere4 ,nearly everything comes to the man who is always all there4 ,men are not really born either hopelessly idle1 or preternaturally industrious4 ,they may move in one direction or the other as will or circumstances dictate1 but it is open to any man to work4 ,hogarth's industrious and idle apprentice point a moral1 but they do not tell a true tale4 ,the real trouble about industry is to apply it in the right direction--and it is therefore the servant of judgment4 ,the true secret of industry well applied is concentration1 and there are many well-known ways of learning that art--the most potent handmaiden of success4 ,industry can be acquired2 it should never be squandered4 ,but health is the foundation both of judgment and industry--and therefore of success4 ,and without health everything is difficult4 ,who can exercise a sound judgment if he is feeling irritable in the morning8 ,who can work hard if he is suffering from a perpetual feeling of malaise8 ,the future lies with the people who will take exercise and not too much exercise4 ,athleticism may be hopeless as a career1 but as a drug it is invaluable4 ,no ordinary man can hope to succeed who does not work his body in moderation4 ,the danger of the athlete is to believe that in kicking a goal he has won the game of life4 ,his object is no longer to be fit for work1 but to be superfit for play4 ,he sees the means and the end through an inverted telescope4 ,the story books always tell us that the ,rowing ,blue finishes up as a ,high ,court ,judge4 ,the truth is very different4 ,the career of sport leads only to failure1 satiety1 or impotence4 ,the hero of the playing fields becomes the dunce of the office4 ,other men go on playing till middle-age robs them of their physical powers4 ,at the end the whole thing is revealed as vanity4 ,play tennis or golf once a day and you may be famous2 play it three times a day and you will be in danger of being thought a professional--without the reward4 ,the pursuit of pleasure is equally ephemeral4 ,time and experience rob even amusement of its charm1 and the night before is not worth next morning's headache4 ,practical success alone makes early middle-age the most pleasurable period of a man's career4 ,what has been worked for in youth then comes to its fruition4 ,it is true that brains alone are not influence1 and that money alone is not influence1 but brains and money combined are power4 ,and fame1 the other object of ambition1 is only another name for either money or power4 ,never was there a moment more favourable for turning talent towards opportunity and opportunity into triumph than ,great ,britain now presents to the man or woman whom ambition stirs to make a success of life4 ,the dominions of the ,british ,empire abolished long ago the privileges which birth confers4 ,no bar has been set there to prevent poverty rising to the heights of wealth and power1 if the man were found equal to the task4 ,the same development has taken place in ,great ,britain to-day4 ,men are no longer born into ,cabinets2 the ladder of education is rapidly reaching a perfection which enables a man born in a cottage or a slum attaining the zenith of success and power4 ,there stand the three attributes to be attained--,judgment1 ,industry1 and ,health4 ,judgment can be improved1 industry can be acquired1 health can be attained by those who will take the trouble4 ,these are the three pillars on which we can build the golden pinnacle of success4 ,,ii ,,happiness3 ,,three ,,secrets ,near by the ,temple of ,success based on the three pillars of ,health1 ,industry1 and ,judgment1 stands another temple4 ,behind the curtains of its doors is concealed the secret of happiness4 ,there are1 of course1 many forms of that priceless gift4 ,different temperaments will interpret it differently4 ,various experiences will produce variations of the blessing4 ,a man may make a failure in his affairs and yet remain happy4 ,the spiritual and inner life is a thing apart from material success4 ,even a man who1 like ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 suffers from chronic ill-health can still be happy4 ,but we must leave out these exceptions and deal with the normal man1 who lives by and for his practical work1 and who desires and enjoys both success and health4 ,granted that he has these two possessions1 must he of necessity be happy8 ,not so4 ,he may have access to the first temple1 but the other temple may still be forbidden him4 ,a rampant ambition can be a torture to him4 ,an exaggerated selfishness can make his life miserable1 or an uneasy conscience may join with the sins of pride to take their revenge on his mentality4 ,for the man who has attained success and health there are three great rules3 ,to do justly1 and to love mercy1 and to walk humbly4 ,these are the three pillars of the ,temple of ,happiness4 ,justice1 which is another word for honesty in practice and in intention1 is perhaps the easiest of the virtues for the successful man of affairs to acquire4 ,his experience has schooled him to something more profound than the acceptance of the rather crude dictum that ,honesty is the best policy--which is often interpreted to mean that it is a mistake to go to gaol4 ,but real justice must go far beyond a mere fear of the law1 or even a realisation that it does not pay to indulge in sharp practice in business4 ,it must be a mental habit--a fixed intention to be fair in dealing with money or politics1 a natural desire to be just and to interpret all bargains and agreements in the spirit as well as in the letter4 ,the idea that nearly all successful men are unscrupulous is very frequently accepted4 ,to the man who knows1 the doctrine is simply foolish4 ,success is not the only or the final test of character1 but it is the best rough-and-ready reckoner4 ,the contrary view that success probably implies a moral defect springs from judging a man by the opinions of his rivals1 enemies1 or neighbours4 ,the real judges of a man's character are his colleagues4 ,if they speak well of him1 there is nothing much wrong4 ,the failure1 on the other hand1 can always be sure of being popular with the men who have beaten him4 ,they give him a testimonial instead of a cheque4 ,it would be too curious a speculation to pursue to ask whether ,justice1 like the other virtues1 is not a form of self-interest4 ,to answer it in the affirmative would condemn equally the doctrines of the ,sermon on the ,mount and the advice to do unto others what they should do unto you4 ,but this is certain4 ,no man can be happy if he suffers from a perpetual doubt of his own justice4 ,the second quality1 ,mercy1 has been regarded as something in contrast or conflict with justice4 ,it is not really so4 ,mercy resembles the prerogative of the judge to temper the law to suit individual cases4 ,it must be of a kindred temper with justice1 or it would degenerate into mere weakness or folly4 ,a man wants to be certain of his own just inclination before he can dare to handle mercy4 ,but the quality of mercy is1 perhaps1 not so common in the human heart as to require this caution4 ,it is a quality that has to be acquired4 ,but the man of success and affairs ought to be the last person to complain of the difficulty of acquiring it4 ,he has in his early days felt the whip-hand too often not to sympathise with the feelings of the under-dog4 ,and he always knows that at some time in his career he1 too1 may need a merciful interpretation of a financial situation4 ,shakespeare may not have had this in his mind when he said that mercy blesseth him that gives and him that takes2 but he is none the less right4 ,those who exercise mercy lay up a store of it for themselves4 ,shylock had law on his side1 but not justice or mercy4 ,one is reminded of his case by the picture of certain ,jews and ,gentiles alike as seen playing roulette at ,monte ,carlo4 ,their losses1 inevitable to any one who plays long enough1 seem to sadden them4 ,m4 ,blanc would be doing a real act of mercy if he would exact his toll not in cash1 but in flesh4 ,some of the players are of a figure and temperament which would miss the pound of flesh far less than the pound sterling4 ,what1 then1 in its essence is the quality of mercy8 ,it is something beyond the mere desire not to push an advantage too far4 ,it is a feeling of tenderness springing out of harsh experience1 as a flower springs out of a rock4 ,it is an inner sense of gratitude for the scheme of things1 finding expression in outward action1 and1 therefore1 assuring its possessor of an abiding happiness4 ,the quality of ,humility is by far the most difficult to attain4 ,there is something deep down in the nature of a successful man of affairs which seems to conflict with it4 ,his career is born in a sense of struggle and courage and conquest1 and the very type of the effort seems to invite in the completed form a temperament of arrogance4 ,i cannot pretend to be humble myself2 all ,i can confess is the knowledge that in so far as ,i could acquire humility ,i should be happier4 ,indeed1 many instances prove that success and humility are not incompatible4 ,one of the most eminent of our politicians is by nature incurably modest4 ,the difficulty in reconciling the two qualities lies in that perpetual presence of self to self which1 though common enough in men of great ambition and ability1 never ceases to be a flaw4 ,but there is certainly one form of humility which all successful men ought to be able to practise4 ,they can avoid a fatal tendency to look down on and despise the younger men who are planting their feet in their own footsteps4 ,the established arrogance which refuses credit or opportunity to rising talent is unpardonable4 ,a man who gives way to what is really simply a form of jealousy cannot hope to be happy1 for jealousy is above all others the passion which tears the heart4 ,the great stumbling block which prevents success embracing humility is the difficulty of distinguishing between the humble mind and the cowardly one4 ,when does humility merge into moral cowardice and courage into arrogance8 ,some men in history have had this problem solved for them4 ,stonewall ,jackson is a type of the man of supreme courage and action and judgment who was yet supremely humble--but he owed his bodily and mental qualities to nature and his humility to the intensity of his ,presbyterian faith4 ,few men are so fortunately compounded4 ,still1 if the moral judgment is worth anything1 a man should be able to practise courage without arrogance and to walk humbly without fear4 ,if he can accomplish the feat he will reap no material reward1 but an immense harvest of inner well-being4 ,he will have found the blue bird of happiness which escapes so easily from the snare4 ,he will have joined ,justice to ,mercy and added ,humility to ,courage1 and in the light of this self-knowledge he will have attained the zenith of a perpetual satisfaction4 ,,iii ,,luck ,some of the critics do not believe that the pinnacle of success stands only on the three pillars of ,judgment1 ,industry1 and ,health4 ,they point out that ,i have omitted one vital factor--,luck4 ,so widespread is this belief1 largely pagan in its origin1 that mere fortune either makes or unmakes men1 that it seems worth while to discuss and refute this dangerous delusion4 ,of course1 if the doctrine merely means that men are the victims of circumstances and surroundings1 it is a truism4 ,it is luckier to be born heir to a peerage and #ajj1jjj than to be born in ,whitechapel4 ,past and present ,chancellors of the ,exchequer have gone far in removing much of this discrepancy in fortune4 ,again1 a disaster which destroys a single individual may alter the whole course of a survivor's career4 ,but the devotees of the ,goddess of ,luck do not mean this at all4 ,they hold that some men are born lucky and others unlucky1 as though some ,fortune presided at their birth2 and that1 irrespective of all merits1 success goes to those on whom ,fortune smiles and defeat to those on whom she frowns4 ,or at least luck is regarded as a kind of attribute of a man like a capacity for arithmetic or games4 ,this view is in essence the belief of the true gambler--not the man who backs his skill at cards1 or his knowledge of racing against his rival--but who goes to the tables at ,monte ,carlo backing runs of good or ill luck4 ,it has been defined as a belief in the imagined tendencies of chance to produce events continuously favourable or continuously unfavourable4 ,the whole conception is a nightmare of the mind1 peculiarly unfavourable to success in business4 ,the laws of games of chance are as inexorable as those of the universe4 ,a skilful player will1 in the long run1 defeat a less skilful one2 the bank at ,monte ,carlo will always beat the individual if he stays long enough4 ,i presume that the bank there is managed honestly1 although ,i neither know nor care whether it is4 ,but this at least is certain--the cagnotte gains #c per cent4 on every spin4 ,mathematically1 a man is bound to lose the capital he invests in every thirty throws when his luck is neither good nor bad4 ,in the long run his luck will leave him with a balanced book--minus the cagnotte4 ,my advice to any man would be1 ,never play roulette at all2 but if you must play1 hold the cagnotte4 ,the ,press1 of course1 often publishes stories of great fortunes made at ,monte ,carlo4 ,the proprietors there understand publicity4 ,such statements bring them new patrons4 ,it is necessary to dwell on this gambling side of the question1 because every man who believes in luck has a touch of the gambler in him1 though he may never have played a stake4 ,and from the point of view of real success in affairs the gambler is doomed in advance4 ,it is a frame of mind which a man should discourage severely when he finds it within the citadel of his mind4 ,it is a view which too frequently infects young men with more ambition than industry4 ,the view of ,fortune as some shining goddess sweeping down from heaven and touching the lucky recipient with her pinions of gold dazzles the mind of youth4 ,men think that with a single stroke they will either be made rich for life or impoverished for ever4 ,the more usual view is less ambitious4 ,it is the complaint that ,fortune has never looked a man's way4 ,failure due to lack of industry is excused on the ground that the goddess has proved adverse4 ,there is a third form of this mental disease4 ,a young man spoke to me in ,monte ,carlo the other day1 and said1 ,i could do anything if only ,i had the chance1 but that chance never comes my way4 ,on that same evening ,i saw the aspirant throwing away whatever chance he may have had at the tables4 ,a similar type of character is to be found in the young man who consistently refuses good offers or even small chances of work because they are not good enough for him4 ,he expects that ,luck will suddenly bestow on him a ready-made position or a gorgeous chance suitable to the high opinions he holds of his own capacities4 ,after a time people tire of giving him any openings at all4 ,in wooing the ,goddess of ,luck he has neglected the ,goddess of ,opportunity4 ,these men in middle age fall into a well-known class4 ,they can be seen haunting the ,temple1 and explaining to their more industrious and successful associates that they would have been ,lord ,chancellor if a big brief had ever come their way4 ,they develop that terrible disease known as the genius of the untried4 ,their case is almost as pitiful or ludicrous as that of the man of very moderate abilities whom drink or some other vice has rendered quite incapable4 ,there will still be found men to whisper to each other as he passes1 ,ah1 if ,brown didn't drink1 he might do anything4 ,far different will be the mental standpoint of the man who really means to succeed4 ,he will banish the idea of luck from his mind4 ,he will accept every opportunity1 however small it may appear1 which seems to lead to the possibility of greater things4 ,he will not wait on luck to open the portals to fortune4 ,he will seize opportunity by the forelock and develop its chances by his industry4 ,here and there he may go wrong1 where judgment or experience is lacking4 ,but out of his very defeats he will learn to do better in the future1 and in the maturity of his knowledge he will attain success4 ,at least1 he will not be found sitting down and whining that luck alone has been against him4 ,there remains a far more subtle argument in favour of the gambling temperament which believes in luck4 ,it is that certain men possess a kind of sixth sense in the realm of speculative enterprise4 ,these men1 it is said1 know by inherent instinct1 divorced from reasoned knowledge1 what enterprise will succeed or fail1 or whether the market will rise or fall4 ,they are the children of fortune4 ,the real diagnosis of these cases is a very different one from that put forward by the mystic apostles of the ,golden ,luck4 ,eminent men who are closely in touch with the great affairs of politics or business often act on what appears to be a mere instinct of this kind4 ,but1 in truth1 they have absorbed1 through a careful and continuous study of events both in the present and the past1 so much knowledge1 that their minds reach a conclusion automatically1 just as the heart beats without any stimulus from the brain4 ,ask them for the reasons of their decision1 and they become inarticulate or unintelligible in their replies4 ,their conscious mind cannot explain the long-hoarded experience of their subconscious self4 ,when they prove right in their forecast1 the world exclaims1 ,what luck6 ,well1 if luck of that kind is long enough continued it will be best ascribed to judgment4 ,the real lucky speculator is of a very different character4 ,he makes a brilliant coup or so and then disappears in some overwhelming disaster4 ,he is as quick in losing his fortune as he is in making it4 ,nothing except ,judgment and ,industry1 backed by ,health1 will ensure real and permanent success4 ,the rest is sheer superstition4 ,two pictures may be put before the believer in luck as an element in success4 ,the one is ,monte ,carlo--where the ,goddess ,fortune is chiefly worshipped--steeped in almost perpetual sunshine1 piled in castellated masses against its hills1 gaining the sense of the illimitable from the blue horizon of the ,mediterranean--a shining land meant for clean exercise and repose4 ,yet there youth is only seen in its depravity1 while old age flocks to the central gambling hell to excite or mortify its jaded appetites by playing a game it is bound to lose4 ,here you may see in their decay the people who believe in luck1 steeped in an atmosphere of smoke and excitement1 while beauty of ,nature or the pursuits of health call to them in vain4 ,three badly lighted tennis courts compete with thirty splendidly furnished casino rooms4 ,but of means for obtaining the results of exercise without the exertion there is no end4 ,the ,salle des ,bains offers to the fat and the jaded the hot bath1 the electric massage1 and all the mechanical instruments for restoring energy4 ,modern science and art combine to outdo the attractions of the baths of ,imperial ,rome4 ,in far different surroundings from these were born the careers of the living captains of modern industry and finance--,inchcape1 ,pirrie1 ,cowdray1 ,leverhulme1 or ,mc,kenna4 ,these men believed in industry1 not in fortune1 and in judgment rather than in chance4 ,the youth of this generation will do well to be guided by their example1 and follow their road to success4 ,not by the worship of the ,goddess of ,luck were the great fortunes established or the great reputations made4 ,it is natural and right for youth to hope1 but if hope turns to a belief in luck1 it becomes a poison to the mind4 ,the youth of ,england has before it a splendid opportunity1 but let it remember always that nothing but work and brains counts1 and that a man can even work himself into brains4 ,no goddess will open to any man the portals of the temple of success4 ,young men must advance boldly to the central shrine along the arduous but well-tried avenues of ,judgment and ,industry4 ,,iv ,,moderation ,judgment1 ,industry1 and ,health1 as the instruments of success1 depend largely on a fourth quality1 which may be called either restraint or moderation4 ,the successful men of these arduous days are those who control themselves strictly4 ,those who are learned in the past may point out exceptions to this rule4 ,but ,charles ,james ,fox or ,bolingbroke were only competing with equals in the art of genteel debauchery4 ,their habits were those of their competitors4 ,they were not fighting men who safeguarded their health and kept a cool head in the morning4 ,it is impossible to imagine to-day a leader of the ,opposition who1 after a night of gambling at faro1 would go down without a breakfast or a bath to develop an important attack on the ,government4 ,the days of the brilliant debauchee are over4 ,politicians no longer retire for good at forty to nurse the gout4 ,the antagonists that careless genius would have to meet in the modern world would be of sterner stuff4 ,the modern men of action realise that a sacrifice of health is a sacrifice of years--and that every year is of value4 ,they protect their constitutions as the final bulwark against the assault of the enemy4 ,a man without a digestion is likely to be a man without a heart4 ,political and financial courage spring as much from the nerves or the stomach as from the brain4 ,and without courage no politician or business man is worth anything4 ,moderation is1 therefore1 the secret of success4 ,and1 above all1 ,i would urge on ambitious youth the absolute necessity of moderation in alcohol4 ,i am the last man in the world to be in favour of the regulation of the social habits of the people by law4 ,here every man should be his own controller and law-giver4 ,but this much is certain3 no man can achieve success who is not strict with himself in this matter2 nor is it a bad thing for an aspiring man of business to be a teetotaller4 ,take the case of the ,prime ,minister4 ,no man is more careful of himself4 ,he sips a single glass of burgundy at dinner for the obvious reason that he enjoys it1 and not because it might stimulate his activities4 ,he has given up the use of tobacco4 ,bolingbroke as a master of manoeuvres would have had a poor chance against him4 ,for ,bolingbroke lost his nerve in the final disaster1 whereas the ,prime ,minister could always be trusted to have all his wits and courage about him4 ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george is regarded as a man riding the storm of politics with nerves to drive him on4 ,no view could be more untrue4 ,in the very worst days of the war in #aiaf he could be discovered at the ,war ,office taking his ten minutes' nap with his feet up on a chair and discarded newspapers lying like the dbris of a battle-field about him4 ,it would be charitable to suppose that he had fallen asleep before he had read his newspapers6 ,he even takes his golf in very moderate doses4 ,we are often told that he needs a prolonged holiday1 but somewhere in his youth he finds inexhaustible reserves of power which he conserves into his middle age4 ,in this way he has found the secret of his temporary ,empire4 ,it is for this reason that the man in command is never too busy to see a caller who has the urgency of vital business at his back4 ,the ,ex-,leader of the ,conservative ,party1 ,mr4 ,bonar ,law1 however much he may differ from the ,premier in many aspects of his temperament1 also finds the foundation of his judgment in exercise and caution4 ,as a player of games he is rather poor1 but makes up in enthusiasm for tennis what he lacks in skill4 ,his habits are almost ascetic in their rigour4 ,he drinks nothing1 and the finest dinner a cook ever conceived would be wasted on him4 ,a single course of the plainest food suffices his appetite1 and he grows manifestly uneasy when faced with a long meal4 ,his pipe1 his one relaxation1 never far absent1 seems to draw him with a magic attraction4 ,as it was1 his physical resources stood perhaps the greatest strain that has been imposed on any public man in our time4 ,from the moment when he joined the first ,coalition ,government in #aiae to the day when he laid down office in #aiba he was beset by cares and immersed in labours which would have overwhelmed almost any other man4 ,neither this nor succeeding ,coalition ,governments were popular with a great section of his ,conservative followers1 and to the task of taking decisions on the war was added the constant and irritating necessity of keeping his own supporters in line with the administration4 ,in #aiaf he had to take the vital decision which displaced ,mr4 ,asquith in favour of ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george1 and during the latter's ,premiership he had to suffer the strain of constantly accommodating himself1 out of a feeling of personal loyalty1 to methods which were not congenial to his own nature4 ,in the face of all these stresses he never would take a holiday1 and nothing except the rigid moderation of his life enabled him to keep the cool penetration of his judgment intact and his physical vigour going during those six terrible years4 ,the ,lord ,chancellor might appear to be an exception to the rule4 ,this is very far from being the case4 ,it is true that his temperament knows no mean either in work or play4 ,one of the most successful speeches he ever delivered in the ,house of ,commons was the fruit of a day of violent exercise1 followed by a night of preparation1 with a wet towel tied round the head4 ,and yet he appeared perfectly fresh2 he has the priceless asset of the most marvellous constitution in the ,british ,empire4 ,kipling's poem on ,france suggests an adaptation to describe the ,lord ,chancellor3 ,furious in luxury1 merciless in toil1 ,terrible with strength renewed from a tireless soil4 ,no man has spent himself more freely in the hunting-field or works harder to-day at games4 ,yet1 with all this tendency to the extreme of work and play1 he is a man of iron resolution and determined self-control4 ,although the most formidable enemy of the ,pussyfooters and the most powerful protector of freedom in the social habits of the people that the ,cabinet contains1 he is1 like ,mr4 ,bonar ,law1 a teetotaler4 ,it is this capacity for governing himself which is pointing upwards to still greater heights of power4 ,mr4 ,mc,kenna is1 perhaps1 the most striking instance of what determination can achieve in the way of health and physique4 ,his rowing ,blue was the simple and direct result of taking pains--in the form of a rowing dummy in which he practised in his own rooms4 ,the achievement was typical of a career which has in its dual success no parallel in modern life4 ,there have been many ,chancellors of the ,exchequer and many big men in the ,city4 ,that a man1 after forcing his way to the front in politics1 should transfer his activities to the ,city and become in a short four years its most commanding figure is unheard of4 ,and ,mr4 ,mc,kenna had the misfortune to enter public life with the handicap of a stutter4 ,he set himself to cure it by reading ,burke aloud to his family1 and he cured it4 ,he was then told by his political friends that he spoke too quickly to be effective4 ,he cured himself of this defect too1 by rehearsing his speeches to a time machine--an ordinary stop-watch1 not one of the ,h4,g4 ,wells' variety4 ,indeed1 if any man can be said to have made himself1 it is ,mr4 ,mc,kenna4 ,he bridges the gulf between politics and the ,city1 and brings one to a final instance of the purely business man4 ,mr4 ,gordon ,selfridge is an exemplar of the simple life practical in the midst of unbounded success4 ,he goes to his office every morning regularly at nine o'clock4 ,in the midst of opulence he eats a frugal lunch in a room which supplies the one thing of which he is avaricious--big windows and plenty of fresh air4 ,for light and air spell for him1 as for the rest of us1 health and sound judgment4 ,he possesses1 indeed1 one terrible and hidden secret--a kind of baron's castle somewhere in the heart of ,south ,england1 where he may retire beyond the pursuit of ,king or people1 and hurl his defiance from its walls to all the intruders which threaten the balance of the mind4 ,no one has yet discovered this castle1 for it exists only on paper4 ,when ,mr4 ,gordon ,selfridge requires mental relaxation1 he may be found poring over the plans which are to be the basis of this fairy edifice4 ,moat and parapet1 tower1 dungeon1 and drawbridge1 are all there1 only awaiting the ,mason of the future to translate them into actuality4 ,but the success of ,mr4 ,selfridge lies in his frugality1 and not in his dreams4 ,one can afford to have a castle in ,spain when one possesses the money to pay for it4 ,it is the complexity of modern life which enforces moderation4 ,science has created vast populations and huge industries1 and also given the means by which single minds can direct them4 ,invention gives these gifts1 and compels man to use them4 ,man is as much the slave as the master of the machine1 as he turns to the telephone or the telegram4 ,in this fierce turmoil of the modern world he can only keep his judgment intact1 his nerves sound1 and his mind secure by the process of self-discipline1 which may be equally defined as restraint1 control1 or moderation4 ,this is the price which must be paid for the gifts the gods confer4 ,v ,,money ,many serious letters and a half-humorous criticism in ,punch suggest that ,i am to be regarded as the apostle of a pure materialism4 ,that is not so4 ,i quite recognise the existence of other ambitions in the walks of ,art1 ,religion1 or ,literature4 ,but at the very outset ,i confined the scope of my advice to those who wish to triumph in practical affairs4 ,i am talking to the young men who want to succeed in business and to build up a new nation4 ,criticism based on any other conception of my purpose is a spent shaft4 ,money--the word has a magical sound4 ,it conjures up before the vision some kind of enchanted paradise where to wish is to have--,aladdin's lamp brought down to earth4 ,yet in reality money carries with it only two qualities of value3 the character it creates in the making2 the self-expression of the individuality in the use of it1 when once it has been made4 ,the art of making money implies all those qualities--resolution1 concentration1 economy1 self-control--which make for success and happiness4 ,the power of using it makes a man who has become the captain of his own soul in the process of its acquirement also the master of the circumstances which surround him4 ,he can shape his immediate world to his own liking4 ,apart from these two faculties1 character in acquirement1 power in use1 money has little value1 and is just as likely to be a curse as a blessing4 ,for this reason the money master will care little for leaving vast wealth to his descendants4 ,he knows that they would be better men for going down stripped into the struggle1 with no inheritance but that of brains and character4 ,wealth without either the wish1 the brains1 or the power to use it is too often the medium through which men pamper the flesh with good living1 and the mind with inanity1 until death1 operating through the liver1 hurries the fortunate youth into an early grave4 ,the inheritance tax should have no terrors for the millionaire4 ,the value of money is1 therefore1 first in the striving for it and then in the use of it4 ,the ambition itself is a fine one--but how is it to be achieved8 ,i would lay down certain definite rules for the guidance of the young man who1 starting with small things1 is determined to go on to great ones3-- #a4 ,the first key which opens the door of success is the trading instinct1 the knowledge and sense of the real value of any article4 ,without it a man need not trouble to enter business at all1 but if he possesses it even in a rudimentary form he can cultivate it in the early days when the mind is still plastic1 until it develops beyond all recognition4 ,when ,i was a boy ,i knew the value in exchange of every marble in my village1 and this practice of valuing became a subconscious habit until1 so long as ,i remained in business1 ,i always had an intuitive perception of the real and not the face value of any article4 ,the young man who will walk through life developing the capacity for determining values1 and then correcting his judgments by his information1 is the man who will succeed in business4 #b4 ,but supposing that a young man has acquired this sense of values1 he may yet ruin himself before he comes to the fruition of his talent if he will not practise economy4 ,by economy ,i mean the economic conduct of his business4 ,examine your profit and loss account before you go out to conquer the financial world1 and then go out for conquest--if the account justifies the enterprise4 ,too many men spend their time in laying down pipe-lines for future profits which may not arrive or only arrive for some newcomer who has taken over the business4 ,there is nothing like sticking to one line of business until you have mastered it4 ,a man who has learned how to conduct a single industry at a profit has conquered the obstacles which stand in the way of success in the larger world of enterprise4 #c4 ,do not try to cut with too wide a swath4 ,this last rule is the most important of all4 ,many promising young men have fallen into ruin from the neglect of this simple principle4 ,it is so easy for premature ambition to launch men out into daring schemes for which they have neither the resources nor the experience4 ,acquire the knowledge of values1 practise economy1 and learn to read the minds of men1 and your technique will then be perfected and ready for use on wider fields4 ,the instinct for values1 the habit of economy1 the technique of business1 are only three forms of the supreme quality of that judgment which is success4 ,for these reasons it is the first #aj1jjj which counts4 ,there is the real struggle1 the test of character1 and the warranty of success4 ,youth and strength are given us to use in that first struggle1 and a man must feel those early deals right down to the pit of his stomach if he is going to be a great man of business4 ,they must shake the very fibre of his being as the conception of a great picture shakes an artist4 ,but the first ten thousand made1 he can advance with greater freedom and take affairs in his stride4 ,he will have the confidence of experience1 and can paint with a big brush because all the details of affairs are now familiar to his mentality4 ,with this assured technique nothing will check the career4 ,why1 says the innkeeper in an adaptation from ,bernard ,shaw's sketch of ,napoleon in ,italy1 conquering countries is like folding a tablecloth4 ,once the first fold is made1 the rest is easy4 ,conquer one1 conquer all4 ,such in effect is the career of the great captains of industry4 ,yet the man who attains1 by the practice of these rules1 a great fortune1 may fail of real achievement and happiness4 ,he may not be able to recognise that the qualities of the aspirant are not exactly the qualities of the man who has arrived4 ,the sense of general responsibility must supersede the spirit of private adventure4 ,the stability of credit becomes the watchword of high finance4 ,thus the great money master will not believe that periods of depression are of necessity ruinous4 ,it is true that no great profits will be made in such years of depression4 ,but the lean years will not last for ever4 ,industry during the period of deflation goes through a process like that of an over-fat man taking a ,turkish bath4 ,the extravagances are eliminated1 new invention and energy spring up to meet the call of necessity1 and when the boom years come again it finds industry1 like a highly trained athlete1 ready to pour out the goods and pay the wages4 ,economic methods are nurtured by depression4 ,but when all has been said and done1 the sceptic may still question us4 ,is the capacity to make money something to be desired and striven for1 something worth having in the character1 some proof of ability in the mind8 ,the answer is ,yes4 ,money which is striven for brings with it the real qualities in life4 ,here are the counters which mark character and brains4 ,the money brain is1 in the modern world1 the supreme brain4 ,why8 ,because that which the greatest number of men strive for will produce the fiercest competition of intellect4 ,politics are for the few2 they are a game1 a fancy1 or an inheritance4 ,leaving out the man of genius who flares out1 perhaps1 once or twice in a century1 the amount of ability which enables a man to cut a very respectable figure in a ,cabinet is extraordinarily low1 compared with that demanded in the world of industry and finance4 ,the politician will never believe this1 but it is so4 ,the battles of the market-place are real duels1 on which realities of life and death and fortune or poverty and even of fame depend4 ,here men fight with a precipice behind them1 not a pension of #b1jjj a year4 ,the young men who go down into that press must win their spurs by no man's favour4 ,but youth can triumph2 it has the resolution when the mind is still plastic to gain that judgment which experience gives4 ,my advice to the young men of to-day is simply this3 ,money is nothing but the fruit of resolution and intellect applied to the affairs of the world4 ,to an unshakable resolution fortune will oppose no bar4 ,,vi ,,education ,a great number of letters have reached me from young men who seem to think that the road to success is barred to them owing to defects in their education4 ,to them ,i would send this message3 ,never believe that success cannot come your way because you have not been educated in the orthodox and regular fashion4 ,the nineteenth century made a god of education1 and its eminent men placed learning as the foremost influence in life4 ,i am bold enough to dissent1 if by education is meant a course of study imposed from without4 ,indeed1 such a course may be a hindrance rather than a help to a man entering on a business career4 ,no young man on the verge of life ought to be in the least discouraged by the fact that he is not stamped with the hall mark of ,oxford or ,cambridge4 ,possibly1 indeed1 he has escaped a grave danger2 for if1 in the impressionable period of youth1 attention is given to one kind of knowledge1 it may very likely be withdrawn from another4 ,a life of sheltered study does not allow a boy to learn the hard facts of the world--and business is concerned with reality4 ,the truth is that education is the fruit of temperament1 not success the fruit of education4 ,what a man draws into himself by his own natural volition is what counts1 because it becomes a living part of himself4 ,i will make one exception in my own case--the ,shorter ,catechism1 which was acquired by compulsion and yet remains with me4 ,my own education was of a most rudimentary description4 ,it will be difficult for the modern ,english mind to grasp the parish of ,newcastle1 ,new ,brunswick1 in the 'eighties--sparse patches of cultivation surrounded by the virgin forest and broken by the rush of an immense river4 ,for half the year the land is in the iron grip of snow and frost1 and the ,miramichi is frozen right down to its estuary--so that the rain is turned to a white dust1 and the sea to a great green stone4 ,it was the seasons which decided my compulsory education4 ,in the winter ,i attended school because it was warm inside1 and in the summer ,i spent my time in the woods because it was warm outside4 ,perhaps the most remarkable instance of what self-education can do is to be found in the achievements of ,mr4 ,j4,l4 ,garvin4 ,he received no formal education at all in the public school or university sense1 and he began to work for his living at an early age4 ,yet1 not only is he1 perhaps1 the most eminent of living journalists1 but his knowledge of books is1 if not more profound than that of any other man in ,england1 certainly wider in range1 for it is not limited to any country or language4 ,by his own unaided efforts he has gained not only knowledge1 but style and judgment4 ,to listen to his talk on literature is not merely to yield oneself to the spell of the magician1 but to feel that the critic has got his estimate of values right4 ,reading1 indeed1 is the real source both of education and of style4 ,read what you like1 not what somebody else tells you that you ought to like4 ,that reading alone is valuable which becomes part of the reader's own mind and nature1 and this can never be the case if the matter is not the result of self-selection1 but forced on the student from outside4 ,read anything and read everything--just as a man with a sound digestion and a good appetite eats largely and indifferently of all that is set before him4 ,the process of selection and rejection1 or1 in other words1 of taste1 will come best and naturally to any man who has the right kind of brains in his head4 ,some books he will throw away2 others he will read over and over again4 ,my education owes much to ,scott and ,stevenson1 stealthily removed from my father's library and read in the hayloft when ,i should have been in school4 ,as a partiality for the right kind of literature grows on a man he is unconsciously forming his mind and his taste and his style1 and by a natural impulse and no forced growth the whole world of letters is his4 ,there are1 of course1 in addition1 certain special branches of education needing teaching which are of particular value to the business life4 ,foremost among these are mathematics and foreign languages4 ,it is not suggested that a knowledge of the higher mathematics is essential to a successful career2 none the less it is true that the type of mind which takes readily to mathematics is the kind which succeeds in the realm of industry and finance4 ,one of the things ,i regret is that my business career was shaped on a continent which speaks one single language for commercial purposes from the ,arctic ,circle to the ,gulf of ,mexico4 ,foreign languages are1 therefore1 a sealed book to me4 ,but if a man can properly appraise the value of something he does not possess1 ,i would place a knowledge of languages high in the list of acquirements making for success4 ,but when all is said and done1 the real education is the market-place of the street4 ,there the study of character enables the boy of judgment to develop an unholy proficiency in estimating the value of the currency of the realm4 ,experiences teaches that no man ought to be downcast in setting out on the adventure of life by a lack of formal knowledge4 ,the ,lord ,chancellor asked me the other day where ,i was going to educate one of my sons4 ,when ,i replied that ,i had not thought about the matter1 and did not care1 he was unable to repress his horror4 ,and yet the real reasons for such indifference are deep rooted in my mind4 ,a boy is master1 and the only master1 of his fortune4 ,if he wants to succeed in literature1 he will read the classics until he obtains by what he draws into himself that kind of instinct which enables him to distinguish between good work and bad1 just as the expert with his eyes shut knows the difference between a good and a bad cigar4 ,neither may be able to give any reason1 for the verdict bases on subconscious knowledge1 but each will be right when he says1 ,here ,i have written well1 or ,here ,i have smoked badly4 ,the message1 therefore1 is one of encouragement to the young men of ,england who are determined to succeed in the affairs of the world1 and yet have not been through the mill4 ,the public schools turn out a type--the individual turns out himself4 ,in the hour of action it is probable that the individual will defeat the type4 ,nothing is of advantage in style except reading for oneself4 ,nothing is of advantage in the art of learning to know a good cigar but the actual practice of smoking4 ,nothing is of advantage in business except going in young1 liking the game1 and buying one's experience4 ,in a word1 man is the creator and not the sport of his fate4 ,he can triumph over his upbringing and1 what is more1 over himself4 ,,vii ,,arrogance ,what is arrogance8 ,to begin with1 it is the besetting sin of young men who have begun to prosper by their own exertions in the affairs of the world4 ,it is not pride1 which is a more or less just estimate of one's own power and responsibilities4 ,it is not vanity or conceit1 which consists in pluming oneself exactly on the qualities one does not possess4 ,arrogance is in essence something of far tougher fibre than conceit4 ,it is the sense of ability and power run riot2 the feeling that the world is an oyster1 and that in opening its rough edges there is no need to care a jot for the interests or susceptibilities of others4 ,a young man who has surmounted his education1 gone out into the world on his own account1 and made some progress in business1 is the ready prey of the bacillus of arrogance4 ,he does not yet know enough of life to realise the price he will have to pay in the future for the brusqueness of his manner or the abruptness of his proceedings4 ,he may even fancy that it is only necessary to be as rude as ,napoleon to acquire all the gifts of the ,emperor4 ,this conception is altogether false1 though it may be pardoned to youth in the first rush of success4 ,the unfortunate point is that in everyday life the older men will not in practice confer this pardon4 ,they are annoyed by the presumption the newcomer displays1 and they visit their wrath on him1 not only at the time of the offence1 but for years afterwards4 ,at the moment this attitude of criticism and hostility the masters of the field show to the aspirant may not be without its advantages if it teaches him that justice1 moderation1 and courtesy are qualities which still possess merits even for the rising young man4 ,if so1 we may thank ,heaven even for our enemies4 ,the usual prophecy for curbing arrogant youth on these occasions is the sure prediction that he will come a smash4 ,as a matter of fact1 it is extraordinarily rare for a man who has conquered the initial difficulties of success in money-making1 if his work is honest1 to come to disaster4 ,none the less1 if the young man hears these ancestral voices prophesying war1 and shivers a little in his bed at night1 he will be none the worse for the cold douche of doubt and enmity4 ,indeed1 so long as youth keeps its head it will be the better for the successive hurdles which obstructive age1 or even middle-age1 puts in its path4 ,a few stumbles will teach it care in approaching the next jump4 ,the only real cure for arrogance is a check--not an absolute failure4 ,for complete disaster is as likely to breed the arrogance of despair as supreme triumph is to breed the arrogance of invincibility4 ,a set-back is the best cure for arrogance4 ,it would be a false assumption to suppose that temporary humiliations or mistakes can rid one definitely and finally of the vice ,i am describing4 ,arrogance seems too closely knit into the very fibre of early success4 ,the firsthand experience of youth is not sufficient to effect the cure--and it may be that no years and no experience will purge the mind of this natural tendency4 ,when ,pitt publicly announced at twenty-three that he would never take anything less than ,cabinet rank he was undoubtedly arrogant4 ,he became ,premier at twenty-four4 ,but age and experience moderated his supreme haughtiness1 leaving at the end a residue of pure self-confidence which enabled him to bear up against blow after blow in the effort to save the ,state4 ,arrogance1 tempered by experience and defeat1 may thus produce in the end the most effective type of character4 ,but it seems a pity that youth should suffer so much in the aftermath while it learns the necessary lessons4 ,but will youth listen to the advice of middle-age8 ,for every man youth tramples on in the arrogance of his successful career a hundred enemies will spring up to dog with an implacable dislike the middle of his life4 ,a fault of manner1 a deal pressed too hard in equity1 the abruptness by which the old gods are tumbled out to make room for the new--all these are treasured up against the successful newcomer4 ,in the very heat of the strife men take no more reckon of these things than of a flesh wound in the middle of a hand-to-hand battle4 ,it is the after recollection on the part of the vanquished that breeds the sullen resentment rankling against the arrogance of the conqueror4 ,years afterwards1 when all these things seem to have passed away1 and the very recollection of them is dim in the mind of the young man1 he will suddenly be struck by an unlooked-for blow dealt from a strange or even a friendly quarter4 ,he will stagger1 as though hit from behind with a stone1 and exclaim1 ,why did this man hit me suddenly from the dark8 ,then searching back in the chamber of his mind he will remember some long past act of arrogance--conceived of at the time merely as an exertion of legitimate power and ability--and he will realise that he is paying in maturity for the indiscretions of his youth4 ,he may be engaged in some scheme for the benefit of a people or a nation in which there is not the faintest trace of self-interest4 ,he may even be anxious to keep the peace with all men in the pursuit of his aim4 ,but he may yet be compelled to look with sorrow on the wreck of his idea and pay the default for the antagonisms of his youth4 ,it is not1 perhaps1 in the nature of youth to be prudent4 ,the game seems everything2 the penalties either nil or remote4 ,but if prudence was ever vital in the early years1 it is in the avoidance of those unnecessary enmities which arrogance brings in its train4 ,it might be supposed that middle-age was preaching to youth on a sin it had outlived4 ,that is not the case4 ,unfortunately1 arrogance is not confined to any period of life4 ,but in early age it is a tendency at once most easy to forgive and to cure4 ,carried into later years1 with no perception of the fault1 it becomes incurable4 ,worse than that1 it usually turns its possessor into a mixture of bore and fool4 ,wrapped up in the mantle of his own self-esteem1 the sufferer fails to catch the drift of sentiment round him1 or to put himself in touch with the opinions of others4 ,his chair in any room is soon surrounded by vacant seats or by patient sufferers4 ,the vice has1 in fact1 turned inwards1 and corroded the mentality4 ,far better the enemies and the mistakes of youth than this final assault on the fortress of inner calm and happiness within the mind4 ,the arrogant man can neither be friends with others nor1 what is worse still1 be friends with himself4 ,the intense concentration on self which the mental habit brings not only disturbs any rational judgment of the values of the outer world1 but poisons all sanity1 calm1 and happiness at the very source of being4 ,it is hard to shed arrogance4 ,it is more difficult to be humble4 ,it is worth while to make the attempt4 ,,viii ,,courage ,courage6 ,it sounds an easy quality to possess1 bringing with it the dreams of ,v4,c4s1 and bestowing on every man worth the name the power to endure physical danger4 ,but courage in business is a more complex affair4 ,it presupposes a logical dilemma which can only be escaped in the field of practice4 ,the man who has nothing but courage easily lets this quality turn into mere stubbornness1 and a crass obstinacy is as much a hindrance to business success as a moral weakness4 ,yet to the man who does not possess moral courage the most brilliant abilities may prove utterly useless4 ,there is the folly of resistance and the folly of complaisance4 ,there is the tendency towards eternal compromise and the desire for futile battle4 ,until the mind of youth has adjusted itself between the two extremes and formed a technique which is not so much independent of either tendency as inclusive of both1 youth cannot hope for great success4 ,the evils which pure stubbornness brings in its train are perfectly clear4 ,men cling to a business indefinitely in the fond wish that a loss may yet be turned into a profit4 ,they hope on for a better day which their intelligence tells them will never dawn4 ,for this attitude of mind stupidity is a better word than stubbornness1 and a far better word than courage4 ,when reason and judgment bid us give up the immediate battle and start afresh on some new line1 it is intellectual cowardice1 not moral courage1 which bids us persevere4 ,this obstinacy is the reverse of the shield of which courage is the shining emblem--for courage in its very essence can never be divorced from judgment4 ,but it is easy for the character to run to the other extreme4 ,there is a well-known type of ,jewish business man who never succeeds because he is always too ready to compromise before the goal of a transaction has been attained4 ,to such a mind the certainty of half a loaf is always better than the probability of a whole one4 ,one merely mentions the type to accentuate the paradox4 ,great affairs above all things require for their successful conduct that class of mind which is eminently sensitive to the drift of events1 to the characters or changing views of friends and opponents1 to a careful avoidance of that rigidity of standpoint which stamps the doctrinaire or the mule4 ,the mind of success must be receptive and plastic4 ,it must know by the receptivity of its capacities whether it is paddling against the tide or with it4 ,but it is perfectly clear that this quality in the man of affairs1 which is akin to the artistic temperament1 may very easily degenerate into mere pliability4 ,never fight1 always negotiate for a remnant of the profits1 becomes the rule of life4 ,at each stage in the career the primroses will beckon more attractively towards the bonfire1 and the uphill path of contest look more stony and unattractive4 ,in this process the intellect may remain unimpaired1 but the moral fibre degenerates4 ,i once had to make a choice of this nature in the days of my youth when ,i was forming the ,canada ,cement ,company4 ,one of the concerns offered for sale to the combine was valued at far too high a price4 ,in fact1 it was obvious that only by selling it at this over-valuation could its debts be paid4 ,the president of this overvalued concern was connected with the most powerful group of financiers that ,canada has ever seen4 ,their smile would mean fortune to a young man1 and their frown ruin to men of lesser position4 ,the loss of including an unproductive concern at an unfair price would have been little to me personally--but it would have saddled the new amalgamated industry and the investors with a liability instead of an asset4 ,it was certainly far easier to be pliable than to be firm4 ,every kind of private pressure was brought to bear on me to accede to the purchase of the property4 ,when this failed1 all the immense engines for the formation of public opinion which were at the disposal of the opposing forces were directed against me in the form of vulgar abuse4 ,and that attack was very cleverly directed4 ,it made no mention of my refusal to buy a certain mill for the combine at an excessive cost to the shareholding public4 ,on the contrary1 those who had failed to induce me to break faith with the investing public appealed to that public to condemn me for forming a ,trust4 ,i am prepared now to confess that ,i was bitterly hurt and injured by the injustice of these attacks4 ,but ,i regret nothing4 ,why8 ,because these early violent criticisms taught me to treat ferocious onslaughts in later life with complete indifference4 ,a certain kind of purely cynical intelligence would hold that ,i should have been far wiser to adopt the pliable rle4 ,but that innate judgment which dwells in the recesses of the mind tells me that my whole capacity for action in affairs would have been destroyed by the moral collapse of yielding to that threat4 ,pliability would have become a habit rather than a matter of judgment and will1 for fortitude only comes by practice4 ,every young man who enters business will at some time or another meet a similar crisis which will determine the bias of his career and dictate his habitual technique in negotiation4 ,but he may well exclaim1 ,how do you help me8 ,you say that courage may be stubbornness and even stupidity--and compromise a mere form of cowardice or weakness4 ,where is the true courage which yet admits of compromise to be found8 ,it is the old question3 ,how can firmness be combined with adaptability to circumstances8 ,there is no answer except that the two qualities must be made to run concurrently in the mind4 ,one must be responsive to the world1 and yet sensible of one's own personality4 ,it is only the special circumstance of a grave crisis which will put a young man to this crucial test of judgment4 ,the case will have to be judged on its merits1 and yet the final decision will affect the whole of his career4 ,but one practical piece of advice can be given4 ,never bully1 and never talk about the whip-hand--it is a word not used in big business4 ,the view of the intellect often turns towards compromise when the direction of the character is towards battle4 ,such a conflict of tendencies is most likely to lead to the wise result4 ,the fusion of firmness with a careful weighing of the risks will best attain the real decision which is known as courage4 ,the intellectual judgment will be balanced by the moral side4 ,any man who could attain this perfect balance between these two parallel sides of his mind would have attained1 at a single stroke1 all that is required to make him eminent in any walk of life4 ,one regards perfection1 but cannot attain it4 ,none the less1 it is out of this struggle to combine a sense of proportion with an innate hardihood that true courage is born2 and courage is success4 ,,ix ,,panic ,panic is the fear which makes great masses of men rush into the abyss without due reason4 ,it is1 in fact1 a mass sentiment with which there is no reasoning4 ,yet at one time or another in his career every man in business will be confronted with a stampede of this character1 and if he does not understand how to deal with it1 he will be trampled in the mud4 ,the purely stubborn man will be the first to go under4 ,he will say1 and may be perfectly right in saying1 that there is no real cause for anxiety4 ,he will prepare to run slap through the storm1 and refuse to reef a single financial sail4 ,he forgets that the mere existence of panic in the minds of others is in itself as hard a factor in the situation as the real value of the properties on the market which are being stampeded4 ,the atmosphere of the business world is a reality even when the views which produce it are wrong4 ,to face a panic one must first of all realise the intrinsic facts1 and then allow for the misreading of others4 ,it is the plastic and ingenious mind which will best grapple with these unusual circumstances4 ,it will invent weapons and expedients with which to face each new phase of the position4 ,whenever you meet an abnormal situation1 said the sage1 deal with it in an abnormal manner4 ,that is sound advice4 ,but a business panic is1 after all1 a rare phenomenon--something a man need only have to face once in a lifetime4 ,it is the panic in the mind of the individual which is the perpetual danger4 ,how many men are there who let this perpetual fear of financial disaster gnaw at their minds like a rat in the dark8 ,those who only see the mask put on in the daytime would be astonished to know the number of men who lay awake at night quaking with fear at some imagined disaster1 the day of which will probably never come4 ,these are the men who cannot keep a good heart--who lack that particular kind of courage which prevents a man becoming the prey of his own nervous imagination4 ,they sell out good business enterprises at an absurdly low price because they have not got the nerve to hold on4 ,those who buy them secure the profits4 ,one may pity the sellers1 but cannot blame the buyers4 ,those who have the courage of their judgment are bound to win4 ,these pessimists foresee all the possibilities1 and just because they foresee too much1 it may be that they will spin out of the disorder of their own minds a real failure which a little calmness and courage would have avoided4 ,the moment a man is infected with this internal panic-fear1 he ceases to be able to exercise his judgment4 ,he is convinced1 let us say1 that the raw material of his industry is running short4 ,he sees himself with contracts on hand which he will not be able to complete4 ,very likely there is not the remotest risk of any such shortage arising1 but1 in the excess of his anxiety1 he buys too heavily1 and at too high a price4 ,his actions become impulsive rather than reasoned4 ,it is true that in the perfectly balanced temperament action will follow on judgment so quickly that the two operations cannot be distinguished4 ,such decisions may appear to be precipitate or impulsive1 but they are not really so4 ,but the young man who has the disease of fear in his brain cells will act on an impulse which is purely irrational1 because it is based on a blind terror and not on a reasoned experience4 ,when a man is in this state of mind1 the best thing he can do is to delay his final decisions until he has really thought matters out4 ,if he does this1 the actual facts of the case may1 on reflection1 prove far less serious than the impulsive and diseased mind has supposed4 ,but it must follow that a man who can only trust his judgment to operate after a period of time must be in the second class1 compared with the formed judgment which can flash into sane action in a moment4 ,he must always be a day behind the fair--a quality fatal to real success4 ,how can the victim exorcise from his mind this dread of the unknown--this partly conscious and partly subconscious form of fear1 which eats the heart alway8 ,nothing can throw off the grip which this acute anxiety has fixed on the brain1 except a resolute effort of will and intelligence4 ,i1 myself1 would give one simple recipe for the cure4 ,when you feel inclined to be anxious about the present1 think of the worst anxiety you ever had in the past4 ,instead of one grip on the mind1 there will be two distinct grips--and the greater grip of the past will overpower the lesser one in the present4 ,nothing1 a man will say1 can be as bad as that crisis of old1 and yet ,i survived it successfully4 ,if ,i went through that and survived1 how far less arduous and dangerous is the situation to-day8 ,a man can thus reason and will himself into the possession of a stout heart4 ,if a man can still the panic of his own heart1 he will need to fear very little all the storms which may rage against him from outside4 ,it is the nature of tense spirits1 says ,lord ,rosebery1 to be unduly elated and unduly depressed4 ,a man who can conquer these extremes and turn them into common level of effort is the man who will be master in the sphere of his own soul1 and1 therefore1 capable of controlling the vast currents which flow from outside4 ,he may rise to that height of calmness once exhibited by ,lord ,leverhulme1 who1 when threatened with panic in his business1 remarked1 ,yes1 of course1 if the skies fall1 all the larks will be killed4 ,panic1 therefore1 whether external or internal1 is an experience which tests at once the body1 the mind1 and the soul4 ,the internal panic is an evil which can only be cured by a resolute application of the will and intellect to the subconscious self4 ,the panic of a world suddenly convulsed in its markets is like a thunderstorm1 sweeping from the mountains down the course of a river to where some town looks out on the bay4 ,it comes in a moment from the wild1 and passes as swiftly into the sea4 ,it has the evanescence of a dream and yet all the force of reality4 ,it consists of air and rain1 and yet the lighter substance1 driven with the force of a panic passion1 can uproot the solid materials1 as the tornado the tall trees and the stone dwellings of humanity1 and turn the secular lives of men into desolation and despair4 ,when it has passed1 all seems calm1 and only the human wreckage remains to show the power of the storm that has swept by4 ,to face these sudden blows which seem to come out of the void1 men must have their reserves of character and mentality well in hand4 ,the first reserve is that of intellect4 ,never let mere pride or obstinacy stand in the way of bowing to the storm4 ,firmness of character should on these terrible occasions be turned inside out1 and be formed into a plasticity of intellect which finds at once its inspiration and its courage in the adoption of novel expedients4 ,the courage of the heart will let no expedient of the ingenuity be left untried4 ,but both ingenuity and courage will find their real source in a health which has not yet exhausted the resources of the body4 ,firmness which is not obstinacy1 health which is not the fad of the valetudinarian1 adaptability which is not weakness1 enterprise which is not rashness--these are the qualities which will preserve men in those evil days when the blast of the terrible one is against the wall4 ,x ,,depression ,depression is not a word which sounds cheerfully in the ears of men of affairs4 ,but the actuality is not as bad as the term4 ,it differs in every respect from ,panic4 ,it is not a sudden and furious gust breaking on a peaceful situation1 irrational both in its onset and in its passing away1 but something which can be foreseen1 and ought to be foreseen1 by any prudent voyager on the waters of business4 ,the wise mariner will furl his sails before the winds blow too strong4 ,nor is depression in itself a disaster4 ,it is merely the wholesome corrective which ,nature applies to the swollen periods of the world's affairs4 ,as with trade and commerce1 so with the individual4 ,the high-spirited man pays for his hours of elation and optimism1 when every prospect seems to be open to him and the sunshine of life a thing which will last for ever1 by corresponding states of reaction and gloom1 when the whole universe seems to be involved in a conspiracy against his welfare4 ,the process is a salutary if not a pleasant one--and has been applied remorsely ever since ,jeshurun waxed fat and kicked4 ,so it is with the volume of the world's business4 ,however well men may try to balance the trend of affairs so as to produce a normal relation between the output and the needs of humanity1 the natural laws do not cease to operate in a rhythmic alternation between the high prices which stimulate production and the glut of goods which overtakes the demand of the market and breaks the price4 ,but this change in the sequence from boom to depression is not an unmixed evil4 ,prosperity spells extravagance in production4 ,while the good times endure1 there is no sufficient incentive either to economy or to invention4 ,a concern which is selling goods at a high profit as fast as it can make them will not trouble to manage its affairs on strict economic lines4 ,it is when the pinch begins to be felt that men will investigate with relentless zeal their whole method of production1 will welcome every procedure which reduces cost1 and seek for every new invention which promises an economy4 ,depression is the purge of business4 ,the lean years abolish the adipose deposit of prosperity4 ,the athlete is once more trained down fine for the battle4 ,men who realise these facts will not1 therefore1 grumble overmuch at bad times4 ,they will1 at least1 have had the sense to see that those times were bound to come1 and have refused to believe that they had entered into a perpetual paradise of high prices4 ,in this respect free will makes the individual superior to the alternations of the market4 ,he1 at least1 is not compelled to be always either exalted or depressed4 ,if he cannot be the master of the market1 he is1 at least1 master of his own fate4 ,how1 then1 should men deal with the alternate cycles of flourishing and declining trade8 ,there is a celebrated dictum1 ,sell on arising market1 buy on a falling one4 ,that man will be safest who will reject this time-worn theory1 or will only accept it with profound modifications4 ,the advice ,i tender on this subject is as applicable to ,throgmorton ,street as it is good for ,mincing ,lane4 ,the danger of the dictum is that it commits the believer to rowing for ever against the tide4 ,let us take the case of buying on a falling market4 ,that a man should abstain from all buying transactions while the market is falling is an absurd proposition4 ,but it is none the less true in the main that such a course is a mistaken one4 ,the machinery of his industry must1 of course1 be kept in motion1 or it will rust and cease to be able to move in better times4 ,but it is unwise to embark on new enterprises and commitments when commerce1 finance1 and industry are all stagnant4 ,and very frequently buying on a falling market means just this4 ,it is like sowing in the depths of winter seeds which would mature just as well if they were sown in ,march4 ,no2 it is when the tide has definitely turned that new enterprises should be undertaken4 ,the iron frost is then broken1 and the sower may go out to scatter in the spring-time seeds which will bring in their harvest4 ,to buy before the turn is to incur the cost of carrying stocks for many unnecessary months4 ,the converse of the proposition is to sell on a rising market4 ,certainly4 ,sell on a rising market1 but do not stop selling because the market ceases to rise4 ,a great part of the art of business is the selling capacity and the organisation of sales1 but to carry out a preordained system of selling on an abstract theory is mere folly4 ,to cease selling just because the market is not rising at a given moment1 and to wait for a better day--which may not dawn--is to burden a firm unduly with the carrying of stocks and commodities4 ,there is a saying in ,canada1 ,go1 while the going is good4 ,the phrase--an invitation to sell--finds its origin in the state of the roads4 ,when the winter is making1 the roads are hard and smooth for sleighing1 and are kept so by the continual fresh falls of snow1 and you can speed swiftly over the firm surface4 ,but when the winter is breaking1 the falls of snow cease1 and the sleigh leaps with a crash and a bump over great gullies1 tossing the traveller from side to side and dashing his head against the dashboard4 ,these depressions are called thank you marms1 because that is the ejaculation with which the victim informs his companions that he has recovered his equanimity4 ,the man who will never sell on a falling market is the man who will not face the thank you marms4 ,he will go while the going is good1 but he will not accept the corollary to the dictum1 ,but don't stop because going is bad4 ,he has not the nerve to face the bump and come up smiling4 ,don't be afraid to sell on a falling market1 or you will be afraid to sell at all until you are forced to sell at far lower prices because of the weight of stocks or commitments which must be liquidated at any cost4 ,it is precisely in time of depression that the men of business ought to press their selling and organise their sales organisation to the utmost limit4 ,if finance1 commerce1 and industry could only be persuaded to take this course in the slack times1 then every action in this direction would cure the evil by lessening the duration of the bad times4 ,not till the surplus stocks have been unloaded will the winter pass and the summer come again in the enterprise of the world4 ,selling is the final cure for depression4 ,,xi ,,failure ,the bitterest thing in life is failure1 and the pity is that it is almost always the result of some avoidable error or misconception4 ,with the rare exception of a man who is by nature a criminal or a waster1 there need be no such thing as failure4 ,every man has a career before him1 or1 at worst1 every man can find a niche in the social order into which he can fit himself with success4 ,the trouble in so many cases is that it takes time and opportunity for a man to discover in what direction his natural bent lies4 ,he springs from a certain stock or class1 and the circumstances which surround him in youth naturally dictate to him the choice of a career4 ,in many cases it will be a method of living to which he is totally unsuited4 ,but once he is embarked on it the clogs are about his feet1 and it is hard to break away and begin all over again4 ,and this ill-fitting of men to jobs may not even embrace so wide a divergence as that between one kind of activity and business and another4 ,a young man may be in the right business for him1 and yet in the wrong department of it4 ,in any case1 the result is the same4 ,the employer votes him no use1 or at least just passable1 or second rate4 ,much worse1 the employee knows himself that he has failed to make good1 and that at the best nothing but a career of mediocrity stretches out before him4 ,he admits a failure1 and by that very act of admission he has failed4 ,the waters of despair close above his head1 and the consequence may be ruin4 ,such mistakes spring from a wrong conception of the nature of the human mind4 ,we are too apt to believe in a kind of abstraction called general ability1 which is expected to exhibit itself under any and every condition4 ,according to this doctrine1 if a man is clever at one thing or successful under one set of circumstances1 he must be equally clever at everything and equally successful under all conditions4 ,such a view is manifestly untrue4 ,the mind of man is shut off into separate compartments1 often capable of acting quite independently of each other4 ,no one would dream of measuring the capacity of the individual for domestic affection by that of his power for oratory1 or his spirituality by his business instinct4 ,and what is true of the larger distinctions of the soul is also true of that particular part of the mind which is devoted to practical success4 ,specialised aptitude for one particular branch of activity is the exception rather than the rule4 ,the contrary opinion may1 indeed1 easily lead to grave error in the judgment of men1 and therefore in the management of affairs4 ,there is no art in which either the barrister1 the politician1 or1 for that matter1 the journalist excels so much as in the rapid grasp of a logical position1 the power of assimilating great masses of material against it or for it1 and of putting out the results of this research again in a lucid and convincing form4 ,anyone listening to such an exposition would be tempted to believe that here was a man of such high general ability that he would be perfectly capable of handling in practice1 and with superb ability1 the affairs he has been explaining4 ,and yet such a judgment would be wrong4 ,the expositor would be a failure as an active agent4 ,it would not be difficult to find the exact converse to the case4 ,the greatest of all the editors of big ,london newspapers will fail entirely to appreciate a careful and logical statement of a situation when it is subjected to him4 ,but place before him the raw material and the implements of his own profession1 and his infallible instinct for news will enable him to produce a newspaper far transcending that which his more logical critic could have achieved4 ,leaving aside a few strange exceptions1 a musician is not a soldier1 a barrister not a stockbroker1 a poet not a man of business1 or a politician a great organiser4 ,anyone who had strayed in youth to the wrong profession and failed might yet prove himself an immense success in another1 and these broad distinctions at the top ramify downwards until the general truth is equally applicable to all the subdivisions of business and even to all the administrative sections of particular firms4 ,to take a single practical instance1 there is the department of salesmanship and the department of finance4 ,salesmanship requires1 above all1 the spirit of optimism4 ,that same spirit carried into the sphere of finance might ruin a firm4 ,the success in one branch might therefore well be the failure in the other1 and vice versa4 ,no young man1 therefore1 has failed until he has succeeded4 ,if ,i had to choose one single and celebrated instance of this doctrine ,i should find it in the career of ,lord ,reading1 ,viceroy of ,india4 ,it may be objected that1 as he is of the ,jewish race and religion1 his is not a fair test case by which to try the abilities and aptitudes of the young men of ,great ,britain4 ,i do not accept the distinction4 ,the powers and mental aptitudes of the ,jews are exactly the same as ours1 except that they come to full flower earlier4 ,the precocity of this maturity is interpreted as a special genius for affairs--which it is not4 ,lord ,reading started his career on the ,stock ,exchange1 where he failed utterly4 ,no doubt experience would have brought him a reasonable measure of success2 but it was equally clear that this was not the sphere for his preeminent abilities4 ,he therefore broke boldly away and entered at the ,bar1 where his intellect secured him a reputation and an income1 especially in commercial cases1 which left his competitors divided between admiration and annoyance4 ,in a single year he made #dj1jjj4 ,the peg had found the round hole4 ,his eminence procured him the ,attorney-,generalship4 ,yet with all his ability and his personal popularity he was not a real success in the ,house of ,commons4 ,parliamentary warfare was not his aptitude4 ,so he became ,lord ,chief ,justice4 ,his great personal character and reputation gave ,lord ,reading in his new position a certain reputation as a great ,lord ,chief4 ,from my own limited experience ,i do not agree4 ,i had to watch closely a certain case he was trying1 and ,i did not think ,lord ,reading was a great judge4 ,he failed to carry the jury with him2 the final ,court of ,appeal ordered a new trial1 which resulted in the reversal of the judgment4 ,such a thing might happen to any judge1 but a strong one would have put a prompt end to proceedings which were obviously vexatious and entailed great cost by the delay on defendants1 who had obviously been dragged improperly into the action4 ,but his real opportunity came with his mission to the ,united ,states during the war4 ,no ambassador had ever achieved such popularity and influence or brought back such rich sheaves with him4 ,as a diplomatist1 a man of law1 and a man of business1 he shone supreme4 ,once more1 since his days at the commercial bar1 he had found the real field for his talents4 ,from the ,law ,courts he has journeyed to a position of great responsibility in ,india4 ,some voices are already acclaiming the success of the new ,viceroy4 ,it will be wiser to wait until it is clear whether his versatile genius will find successful play in its new environment4 ,but the moral of ,lord ,reading's career is plain4 ,do not despair over initial failure4 ,seek a new opening more suited to your talents4 ,fight on in the certain hope that a career waits for every man4 ,,xii ,,consistency ,nothing is so bad as consistency4 ,there exists no more terrible person than the man who remarks3 ,well1 you may say what you like1 but at any rate ,i have been consistent4 ,this argument is generally advanced as the palliation for some notorious failure4 ,and this is natural ,for the man who is consistent must be out of touch with reality4 ,there is no consistency in the course of events1 in history1 in the weather1 or in the mental attitude of one's fellow-men4 ,the consistent man means that he intends to apply a single foot-rule to all the chances and changes of the universe4 ,this mental standpoint must of necessity be founded on error4 ,to adopt it is to sacrifice judgment1 to cast away experience1 and to treat knowledge as of no account4 ,the man who prides himself on his consistency means that facts are nothing compared to his superior sense of intellectual virtue4 ,but to attack consistency is quite a different thing from elevating inconsistency to the rank of an ideal4 ,the man who was proud of being inconsistent1 not from necessity but from choice1 would be as much of a fool as his opposite4 ,life1 in a word1 can never be lived by a theory4 ,the politicians are the most prominent victims of the doctrine of consistency4 ,they practice an art which1 above all others1 depends for success on opportunism--on dealing adequately with the chances and changes of circumstances and personalities4 ,and yet the politician more than anyone else has to consider how far he dare do the right thing to-day in view of what he said yesterday4 ,the policy of a great nation is often diverted into wrong channels by the memories of old speeches1 and statesmen fear men who mole in ,hansard4 ,again1 ,i do not recommend inconsistency as a good thing in itself4 ,if a politician believes in some great general economic policy such as ,free ,trade or ,protection1 he will only be justified in changing his mind under the irresistible pressure of a change of circumstance4 ,he will be slow1 and rightly1 to change his standpoint until the evidence carries absolute conviction4 ,in business consistency of mental attitude is a terrible vice1 for a simple and obvious reason4 ,by an inevitable process like the swaying of the solstice the business world alternates between periods of boom and periods of depression4 ,the wheel is always revolving1 fast or slow1 round the full cycle of over-or under-production4 ,it is clear that a policy which is right in one stage of the process must necessarily be wrong in the other4 ,what would happen to a man who said1 ,i am consistent4 ,i always buy1 or to one who replied1 ,no man can charge me with lack of principle4 ,i invariably sell8 ,their stories would soon be written in the ,gazette4 ,this is the most obvious instance of the perils of consistency in the world of business4 ,but1 quite apart from this1 nothing but fluidity of judgment can ever lead the man of affairs to success4 ,i once took the chairmanship of a bank which had passed into a state of torpor threatening final decay4 ,there was not a living fibre in it1 and my task was to try to galvanise the corpse4 ,i sought here and there and in every direction for an opening1 like a boxer feeling for a weak point in his opponent's guard4 ,my fellow directors1 who had served on the board for many years1 were shrewd business men1 but if the bank had not lost the capacity for either accepting or creating new situations it would not have been in a state of decay4 ,the board met once a week1 and the directors gathered together before the meeting at the luncheon-table4 ,what surprise proposal are you going to spring on us to-day8 they used to ask me4 ,and the mere fact that the proposal was of the nature of a surprise was almost invariably the only criticism against it4 ,i may have been wrong in surprising my colleagues by the various projects that ,i put forward1 but in the propositions themselves ,i proved right4 ,the criticism was really based on the doctrine of consistency fatal to all business enterprise4 ,suppose an amalgamation was contemplated one day ,i would be a buyer of another bank1 and if by next week this plan had fallen through ,i would be strongly in favour of selling to a bigger bank4 ,but you are inconsistent1 said my colleagues4 ,my answer is that what the business needed was life and movement at all costs1 and that buying or selling1 consistency or inconsistency were neither here nor there4 ,the prominent capitalist is often open to this particular charge4 ,on ,wednesday1 says the adversary1 he was all for this great scheme2 on ,friday he has forgotten all about it and has another one4 ,this is perfectly true--but then between ,wednesday and ,friday the weather has changed completely4 ,is the barometer fickle or inconsistent because it registers an alteration of weather8 ,nevertheless1 the men of affairs who follow facts to success rather than consistency to failure must expect to pay the penalty4 ,or at least1 if they are to avoid the punishment for being right they must take enormous precautions4 ,the principle penalty is the prompt criticism that although the successful business man plays the game with vigour1 nerve1 and sinew1 yet he plays it according to his own rules4 ,the truth is that there is no other way in which to play the game4 ,fluidity of judgment1 adversely described as fickleness and inconsistency1 is the essence of success4 ,but the criticism is damaging4 ,there are only two ways of combating it1 the wrong one and the right one4 ,the wrong method is that of hypocrisy--claiming a consistency which does not exist4 ,the right one is to cultivate the art of pleasing1 so that inconsistency may be forgiven4 ,friends may thus be retained though business policies vary4 ,this is the highest art of financial diplomacy4 ,those who by some misfortune of character or upbringing are incapable of this practice must make up their minds to face the abuse which their successful practice of inconsistency will entail4 ,they will not1 if they are wise1 cultivate hypocrisy1 not because the practice will damage them in the esteem of their colleagues and neighbours1 for1 on the contrary1 it will enhance their repute1 but because it will damage their own self-respect4 ,they would know that they were right in following fact and fortune1 and yet would be making a public admission that they were wrong4 ,,xiii ,,prejudice ,the most common1 and1 perhaps1 the most serious of vices is prejudice4 ,it is a thing imbibed with one's mother's milk1 fortified by all one's youthful surroundings1 and only broken through1 if at all1 by experience of the world and a deliberate mental effort4 ,prejudice is1 indeed1 a vice in the most serious sense of the term4 ,it is more damaging and corroding in its effects than most of the evil habits which are usually described by that term4 ,it is destructive of judgment and devastating in its effect on the mentality because it is a symptom of a narrowness of outlook on the world4 ,the man who can learn to outlive prejudice has broken through an iron ring which binds the mind4 ,and yet we all come into the world of affairs in early youth with that ring surrounding our temples4 ,we have subconscious prejudices even where we have no conscious ones4 ,family1 tradition1 early instruction and upbringing fasten on every man preconceptions which are hard to break4 ,i write out of my own experience4 ,i was brought up as the son of a minister of the ,church of ,scotland1 who left ,edinburgh ,university as a young man to take up a ministry in ,canada4 ,the ,presbyterian faith was1 therefore1 the one in which ,i was brought up in my boyhood1 and ,i still feel in my inner being a prejudice1 which ,i cannot defend in reason1 against those doctrines which traverse the ,westminster ,confession of ,faith4 ,however much thought and experience have modified my views on religious questions1 my tendency is to become the ,church of ,scotland militant if any other denomination challenges its views or organisation4 ,such are the prepossessions which surround youth4 ,they are formidable1 whether they take the shape of religion or politics or class--and a fixed form of religious belief is probably the most operative of them all4 ,it is quite possible that but for subconscious training of the mind inbred through the generations neither man nor society would have been able to survive4 ,none the less1 now that man has attained the stage of social reason1 prejudice is rather a weakness than a strength4 ,the greatest prejudice in social life is that against persons--not against people known to one1 for in that case it is dislike or indifference or even hatred1 but against some individual not even known by sight4 ,a mentions ,b to ,c4 ,oh6 says ,c4 ,i loathe that man4 ,but have you ever met him8 says ,a4 ,no1 and ,i don't want to1 but ,i know quite enough about him4 ,but what do you know against him8 ,well1 ,i know that ,e told ,d1 who told me1 that he was black through and through1 and a bad man4 ,a few weeks afterwards ,c sits next ,b at dinner2 finds him an excellent sort of man to talk to and to do business with1 and henceforward goes about chanting his praises4 ,thus is personal prejudice disproved by the actual fact4 ,it is a curious freak of circumstance1 not easily accounted for1 that men who possess that fascination of personality which makes them firm friends and violent enemies are most liable to be adversely judged out of that lack of knowledge which is called prejudice4 ,there is another form of the error which is found in the business world4 ,men of affairs conceive quite irrational dislikes for certain types of securities or transactions4 ,they are given1 perhaps1 an excellent offer1 out of which they might make a considerable profit4 ,they turn the matter down without further consideration4 ,their ostensible reason is that they are not accustomed to deal in that particular class of security4 ,their real reason for refusing is that they are the victims of their own environment1 and that they have not the intellectual courage or force to break away from it even when every argument proves that it would be to their advantage to do so4 ,their intellects have become musclebound by habit or tradition4 ,the fourth and1 perhaps1 the most violent form of prejudice1 outside the sphere of religion1 may be found in politics4 ,men embrace certain political conceptions1 and1 though the whole world breaks into ruins1 and is reconstructed around them1 nothing will alter their original ideas4 ,the ,radical says that the ,tory does not change his spots1 and the ,tory is convinced that a ,radical is still a direct emanation of the evil one4 ,in the middle of these conflicting antagonisms the real road to national peace1 prosperity1 and security is missed by those who prefer prejudice to the lessons which reality teaches4 ,the most infamous case of all to the unbending partisan is that of a man who has so far outlived the prejudices of party as to be able to criticise one side without joining another4 ,the advantage of prejudice is the preservation of tradition2 its disadvantage is the inability which it brings to an individual or to a nation to adapt life to the change of circumstance4 ,it is1 therefore1 at once both the vice of youth and of age4 ,youth is prejudiced by upbringing2 age is prejudiced because it cannot adapt itself to the circumstances of a changing world4 ,but both youth and age can fight by the power of the human will against the tendencies which steep them in their own prepossessions4 ,youth can say3 ,i will forget that ,i was brought up to be a ,scotsman and a ,presbyterian1 and so prejudiced against all ,roman ,catholics or ,jews2 the world is open to me1 ,i will form my own convictions and judge men and religion on their merits4 ,the subconscious self will still operate1 but its extravagances will be checked by reason and will4 ,age can say to itself3 ,it is true that all that has happened in the past is part of my experience1 and therefore of me4 ,i have formed certain conclusions from what ,i have observed1 but the data on which ,i have formed them are constantly changing4 ,the moment that ,i cease to be able to accept and pass into my own experience new factors which my past would reject as unpleasant or untrue ,i have become stereotyped in prejudice and the truth of actuality is no longer in me1 and when touch with the world is lost the only alternative is retirement or disaster4 ,the more quickly youth breaks away from the prejudices of its surroundings1 the more rapid will be its success4 ,the harder that age fights against prepossessions1 born of the past1 which gather round to obstruct the free operation of its mind1 the longer will be the period of a happy1 successful1 and active life4 ,prejudice is a mixture of pride and egotism1 and no prejudiced man1 therefore1 will be happy4 ,,xiv ,,calm ,the last two essays have dealt with the more depressing sides of practical life--the sudden tempest which sweeps down on the business man1 or the long period of depression which is the necessary prelude to the times in which optimism is justified4 ,but it is on the note of optimism1 and not of pessimism1 that ,i would conclude1 and after the storm comes the calm4 ,what is calm to the man of experience in affairs8 ,it is the end to which turbulent and ambitious youth should devote itself in order that it may attain to happiness in that period of middle-age which still gives to assured success its real flavour4 ,youth is the time of hope2 old age is the time for looking back on the pleasures and achievements of the past--when success or failure may seem matters of comparative unimportance4 ,successful middle-age stands between the two4 ,its calm is not the result either of senility or failure4 ,it represents that solid success which enables a man to adventure into fresh spheres without any perturbation4 ,new fields call to him--,art1 or ,letters1 or ,public ,service4 ,success is already his1 and it will be his own fault if he does not achieve happiness as well4 ,successful middle-age appears to me to be the ideal of practical men4 ,i have tried to indicate the method by which it can be attained by any young man who is sufficiently resolute in his purpose4 ,finance1 ,commerce1 and ,industry are1 under modern conditions1 spheres open to the talent of any individual4 ,the lack of education in the formal sense is no bar to advancement4 ,every young man has his chance4 ,but will he practise industry1 economy1 and moderation1 avoid arrogance and panic1 and know how to face depression with a stout heart8 ,even if he is a genius1 will he know how not to soar with duly restrained wings8 ,the secret of power is the method by which the fire of youth is translated into the knowledge of experience4 ,in these essays ,i have suggested a short cut to that knowledge4 ,i once had youth1 and now ,i have experience1 and ,i believe that youth can do anything if its desire for success is sufficiently strong to curb all other desires4 ,i also believe that a few words of experience can teach youth how to avoid the pitfalls of finance which wait for the most audacious spirits4 ,i write out of the conviction of my own experience4 ,but1 above all1 stands the attainment of happiness as the final form of struggle4 ,happiness can only be attained as the result of a prolonged effort4 ,it is the result of material surroundings and yet a state of the inner mind4 ,it is1 therefore1 in some form or another at once the consequence of achievement and a sense of calm4 ,the flavour is achievement1 but the fruit should be the assured sense of happiness4 ,one or another ,in money or guns may surpass his brother4 ,but whoever shall know1 ,as the long days go4 ,that to live is happy1 has found his heaven4 ,it is in ignoring this doctrine of the poet that so many men go wrong4 ,they practise the doctrines of success3 they attain it1 and then they lose happiness because they cannot stop4 ,the flower is brilliant1 but the fruit has a sour taste4 ,the final crown in the career of success is to know when to retire4 ,call no man happy1 says the ancient sage1 until he is dead1 drawing his moral from the cruel death of a great ,king4 ,i would say1 call no man successful until he has left business with enough money to live the kind of life that pleases him4 ,the man who holds on beyond this limit is laying up trouble for himself and disappointment for others4 ,success in the financial world is the prerogative of young men4 ,a man who has not succeeded in the field before middle-age comes upon him1 will never succeed in the fundamental sense of the term4 ,an honourable and prosperous career may1 indeed1 lie before him1 but he will never reach the heights4 ,he will just go on from year to year1 making rather more or rather less money1 by a toil to which only death or old age will put a term4 ,and ,i have not written this book for the middle-aged1 but for the young4 ,to them my advice would be1 ,succeed young1 and retire as young as you can4 ,the fate of the successful who hold on long after they have amassed a great1 or at least an adequate1 fortune1 is written broad across the face of financial history4 ,the young man who has arrived has formed the habit and acquired the technique of business4 ,the habit has become part of his being4 ,how hard it is to give it up6 ,his technique has become almost universally successful4 ,if he has made #ej1jjj by it1 why not go on and make half a million2 if he has made a million1 why not go on and make three8 ,all that you have to do1 says the subtle tempter1 is to reproduce the process of success indefinitely4 ,the riches and the powers of the world are to be had in increasing abundance by the mere exercise of qualities which1 though they have been painfully acquired1 have now become the very habit of pleasure4 ,how dull life would seem if the process of making money was abandoned2 how impossible for a man of ripe experience to fail where the mere stripling had succeeded8 ,the temptation is subtle1 but the logic is wrong4 ,success is not a process which can reproduce itself indefinitely in the same field4 ,the dominant mind loses its elasticity3 it fails to appreciate real values under changed conditions4 ,victory has become to it not so much a struggle as a habit4 ,then follows the decline4 ,the judgment begins to waver or go astray out of a kind of self-worship1 which makes the satisfaction of self1 and not the realisation of what is possible1 the dominant object in every transaction4 ,there will be plenty of money to back this delusion for a time1 and plenty of flatterers and sycophants to play up to and encourage the delusion4 ,the history of ,napoleon has not been written in vain4 ,here we see a first-class intellect going through this process of mental corruption1 which leads from overwhelming success in early youth1 to absolute disaster in middle-age4 ,the only hope for the ,napoleon of ,finance is to retire before his delusions overtake him4 ,but what is the man who retires early from business to do8 ,some form of activity must fill the void4 ,the answer to the question is to be found in a change of occupation4 ,to some1 recreation1 and the pursuit of some art or science or study may bring satisfaction1 but these will be the exceptions4 ,some kind of public service will beckon to the majority4 ,and it is natural that this should be the case4 ,politics1 journalism1 the management of ,commissions or charitable organisations1 all require much the same kind of aptitudes and draw on the same kind of experiences which are acquired by the successful man of affairs4 ,the difference is that they are not so arduous1 because they are rarely a matter of life and death to any man--and certainly can never be so to a man with an assured income4 ,on the other hand1 from the point of view of society1 it is a great advantage to a nation that it should have at its disposal the services of men of this kind of capacity and experience4 ,what public life needs above all things is the presence in it of men who have a knowledge of reality4 ,in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the landowning classes supplied this kind of direction to the ,state as the fruit of their leisure1 and1 despite some narrowness and selfishness1 they undoubtedly did their work well4 ,but they were disappearing as a class before the war1 and the war has practically destroyed them4 ,nor are the world-wide industrial1 commercial1 and economic problems of the twentieth century particularly suitable to their form of intellect4 ,the policy of ,great ,britain of to-day ought to be founded on a knowledge both of markets and production4 ,it is here that the retired man of affairs can help4 ,simply to go on making money after all personal need for it has passed is1 therefore1 a form of selfishness1 and1 in consequence1 will not bring happiness1 and in the ultimate calculation that life can hardly be called successful which is not happy4 ,my final message is one of hope to youth4 ,dare all1 yet keep a sense of proportion4 ,deny yourself all1 and yet do not be a prig4 ,hope all1 without arrogance1 and you will achieve all without losing the capacity for moderation4 ,then the ,temple of ,success will assuredly be open to you1 and you will pass from it into the inner shrine of happiness4 ,printed by ,hazell1 ,watson ,viney1 ,ld41 ,london and ,aylesbury4