This is the most striking kind of success, and it can be attained only by the man who has in him the quality which separates him in kind no less than in degree from his fellows.  But much the commoner type of success in every walk of life and in every species of effort is that which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the degree of development which he has given that quality.  This kind of success is open to a large number of persons, if only they seriously determine to achieve it.  It is the kind of success which is open to the average man of sound body and fair mind, who has no remarkable mental or physical attributes, but who gets just as much as possible in the way of work out of the aptitudes that he does possess.  It is the only kind of success that is open to most of us.  Yet some of the greatest successes in history have been those of this second class—­when I call it second class I am not running it down in the least, I am merely pointing out that it differs in kind from the first class.  To the average man it is probably more useful to study this second type of success than to study the first.  From the study of the first he can learn inspiration, he can get uplift and lofty enthusiasm.  From the study of the second he can, if he chooses, find out how to win a similar success himself.

I need hardly say that all the successes I have ever won have been of the second type.  I never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my best judgment and careful planning and working long in advance.  Having been a rather sickly and awkward boy, I was as a young man at first both nervous and distrustful of my own prowess.  I had to train myself painfully and laboriously not merely as regards my body but as regards my soul and spirit.

When a boy I read a passage in one of Marryat’s books which always impressed me.  In this passage the captain of some small British man-of-war is explaining to the hero how to acquire the quality of fearlessness.  He says that at the outset almost every man is frightened when he goes into action, but that the course to follow is for the man to keep such a grip on himself that he can act just as if he was not frightened.  After this is kept up long enough it changes from pretense to reality, and the man does in very fact become fearless by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness when he does not feel it. (I am using my own language, not Marryat’s.) This was the theory upon which I went.  There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears to “mean” horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.  Most men can have the same experience if they choose.  They will first learn to bear themselves well in trials which they anticipate and which they school themselves in advance to meet.  After a while the habit will grow on them, and they will behave well in sudden and unexpected emergencies which come upon them unawares.