But it is easy for the character to run to the other extreme.  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 attained.  To such a mind the certainty of half a loaf is always better than the probability of a whole one.  One merely mentions the type to accentuate the paradox.  Great affairs above all things require for their successful conduct that class of mind which is eminently sensitive to the drift of events, to the characters or changing views of friends and opponents, to a careful avoidance of that rigidity of standpoint which stamps the doctrinaire or the mule.  The mind of success must be receptive and plastic.  It must know by the receptivity of its capacities whether it is paddling against the tide or with it.

But it is perfectly clear that this quality in the man of affairs, which is akin to the artistic temperament, may very easily degenerate into mere pliability.  Never fight, always negotiate for a remnant of the profits, becomes the rule of life.  At each stage in the career the primroses will beckon more attractively towards the bonfire, and the uphill path of contest look more stony and unattractive.  In this process the intellect may remain unimpaired, but the moral fibre degenerates.

I once had to make a choice of this nature in the days of my youth when I was forming the Canada Cement Company.  One of the concerns offered for sale to the combine was valued at far too high a price.  In fact, it was obvious that only by selling it at this over-valuation could its debts be paid.  The president of this overvalued concern was connected with the most powerful group of financiers that Canada has ever seen.  Their smile would mean fortune to a young man, and their frown ruin to men of lesser position.  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 asset.  It was certainly far easier to be pliable than to be firm.  Every kind of private pressure was brought to bear on me to accede to the purchase of the property.

When this failed, 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 abuse.  And that attack was very cleverly directed.  It made no mention of my refusal to buy a certain mill for the combine at an excessive cost to the shareholding public.  On the contrary, those who had failed to induce me to break faith with the investing public appealed to that public to condemn me for forming a Trust.