[12] Or, "and then by the grace of Heaven you may win the smiles of
fortune," reading with Courier, etc., {ina kai e tukhe sunepaine}.
Cf. "Cyrop." III. iii. 20.

At times there is no more effective fraud than a make-believe[13] of
over-caution alien to the spirit of adventure. This itself will put
the enemy off his guard and ten to one will lure him into some
egregious blunder; or conversely, once get a reputation for
foolhardiness established, and then with folded hands sit feigning
future action, and see what a world of trouble you will thereby cause
your adversary.

[13] S. 15 should perhaps stand before S. 13.



VI

But, after all, no man, however great his plastic skill, can hope to
mould and shape a work of art to suit his fancy, unless the stuff on
which he works be first prepared and made ready to obey the
craftsman's will. Nor certainly where the raw material consists of
men, will you succeed, unless, under God's blessing, these same men
have been prepared and made ready to meet their officer in a friendly
spirit. They must come to look upon him as of greater sagacity than
themselves in all that concerns encounter with the enemy. This
friendly disposition on the part of his subordinates, one must
suppose, will best be fostered by a corresponding sympathy on the part
of their commander towards the men themselves, and that not by simple
kindness but by the obvious pains he takes on their behalf, at one