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ATTACK, DISCRETION IN
As with a fortress, so with many fortified evils. It is often better to flank them than to exhaust strength by direct attack.
To let a fortress go, so far from being disgraceful, is often one of the best things a general can do. If MacMahon had let Metz go, the Germans could not have got round Paris without tremendous losses and months of fighting. If Lee had abandoned Richmond in 1862 the war might have been protracted indefinitely. The greatest mistake Osman Pasha made in 1877 was holding on to Plevna too long. Napoleon let Genoa go in spite of the fine defense of Massena, but he soon recovered it after he had defeated the Austrians in the field. In the American civil war Burnside was compelled by the press to advance, with the result of the failure at Fredericksburg and the loss of 12,000 men. A field army should never be risked for a fortress.—Dr. Miller Maguire, London News.
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See [Aggression]; [Saloon, Fighting the].
Attainment by Abandonment—See [Higher, The].
ATTAINMENT, SUPERFICIAL
There are men who attempt to rise in the social scale without any apparent fitness for the larger place aspired to. Many start off on a course, but lack ability, patience and pluck to persevere and so fail of their goal, as the following somewhat humorous illustration suggests:
Attorney William S. Barnes, of San Francisco, has a new office boy. The last boy with whom he was associated resigned a few days ago because the law business did not suit his peculiar temperament.