Wrapped up in the mantle of his own self-esteem, the sufferer fails to catch the drift of sentiment round him, or to put himself in touch with the opinions of others.  His chair in any room is soon surrounded by vacant seats or by patient sufferers.  The vice has, in fact, turned inwards, and corroded the mentality.  Far better the enemies and the mistakes of youth than this final assault on the fortress of inner calm and happiness within the mind.

The arrogant man can neither be friends with others nor, what is worse still, be friends with himself.  The intense concentration on self which the mental habit brings not only disturbs any rational judgment of the values of the outer world, but poisons all sanity, calm, and happiness at the very source of being.  It is hard to shed arrogance.  It is more difficult to be humble.  It is worth while to make the attempt.

VIII

COURAGE

Courage!  It sounds an easy quality to possess, bringing with it the dreams of V.C.s, and bestowing on every man worth the name the power to endure physical danger.  But courage in business is a more complex affair.  It presupposes a logical dilemma which can only be escaped in the field of practice.

The man who has nothing but courage easily lets this quality turn into mere stubbornness, and a crass obstinacy is as much a hindrance to business success as a moral weakness.  Yet to the man who does not possess moral courage the most brilliant abilities may prove utterly useless.  There is the folly of resistance and the folly of complaisance.  There is the tendency towards eternal compromise and the desire for futile battle.  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 both, youth cannot hope for great success.

The evils which pure stubbornness brings in its train are perfectly clear.  Men cling to a business indefinitely in the fond wish that a loss may yet be turned into a profit.  They hope on for a better day which their intelligence tells them will never dawn.  For this attitude of mind stupidity is a better word than stubbornness, and a far better word than courage.  When reason and judgment bid us give up the immediate battle and start afresh on some new line, it is intellectual cowardice, not moral courage, which bids us persevere.  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 judgment.