“For well the soul if stout within
Can arm impregnably the skin,”
we are assured by Emerson; but in fact there are many who cannot learn to endure with equanimity the roughand-tumble of ordinary competition, and need, if possible, to seclude themselves from it. This was apparently the case with Darwin—who fell far short of Wellington’s standard as to lying awake—and with a large part of the men who have done creative work of a finer sort. Indeed such work, if pursued incontinently, involves a mental and nervous strain and a morbid sensibility which has brought many choice spirits to ruin.
The self-reliant and path making traits are more and more necessary as society increases in freedom and complexity, because this increase means an enlargement of the field of choice and exploration within which the individual has to find his way. Instead of restricting individuality, as many imagine, civilization, so far as it is a free civilization, works quite the other way. We may apply to the modern citizen a good part of what Bernhardi says of the individual soldier in modern war: “Almost all the time he is in action he is left to himself. He himself must estimate the distances, he himself must judge the ground and use it, select his target and adjust his sights; he must know whither to advance; what point in the enemy’s position he is to reach; with unswerving determination he himself must strive to get there.”[[17]]
The sympathetic traits supplement the more aggressive by enabling one to move easily among his fellows and gain their co-operation. Modern conditions are more and more requiring that every man be a man of the world; because they demand that he make himself at home in an ever-enlarging social organism.
I suppose that if one were coaching a young man for success, no counsel would be more useful than this: “Approach every man in a friendly and cheerful spirit, trying to understand his point of view. Such a spirit is contagious, and if you have it people will commonly meet you in the same vein. Do not forget your own aims, but cultivate a belief that others are disposed to do them justice.” We are too apt to waste energy in apprehensive and resentful imaginations, which tend to create what they depict. It is notable that the principle of Christian conduct, namely, that of imagining yourself in the other person’s place, is also a principle of practical success.
The spirit of a man is the most practical thing in the world. You cannot touch or define it; it is an intimate mystery; yet it makes careers, builds up enterprises, and draws salaries.
Retiring people who work conscientiously at their task but lack social enterprise and facility, often feel a certain sense of injustice, I think, at the more rapid advancement of those who have these traits but are, perhaps, not so conscientious and well-grounded. A man of decidedly good address and not wholly deficient in other respects can secure profitable employment almost on sight, and be rapidly promoted over men, otherwise fully equal to him, who lack this trait. And there may, after all, be no injustice in this, because the selection is based on a real superiority in any work calling for influence over other people. Perhaps the best refuge for the retiring man is to reflect that character is a main factor in such influence, and that if he has this and plucks up a little more courage in asserting it, he may find that he has as much address as others.
I believe that the more external and obvious handicaps to success are much less serious than is ordinarily supposed. Such traits as deafness, lameness, bad eyesight, ugliness, stammering, extreme shyness, and the like, are often detrimental only in so far as they are allowed to confine or intimidate the spirit, and will seldom prevent a courageous person from accomplishing what is otherwise within his ability. They are by no means such fatal obstacles to intercourse as they may appear. The very fact that one has the heart to face the world on the open road regardless of an obvious handicap may make him interesting, so that while he may have to suffer an occasional rebuff from the vulgar, the men of real significance will be all the more apt to respect and attend to him.
And the effect on his own character may well be to define and concentrate it, and give it an energy and discipline it would otherwise have lacked. Those apparently fortunate people who have many facilities, to whom every road seems open, are hardly to be envied; they seldom go far in any direction. Except in some such way as this, how can we explain the cases in which the totally blind, for example, have succeeded in careers like medicine, natural science, or statesmanship? I judge that they do it not because of superhuman abilities, but because they have the hardihood to act on the view that the spirit of a man and not his organs is the essential thing.