nothing but work and brains counts, and that a man can even work himself
into brains. No goddess will open to any man the portals of the temple
of success. Young men must advance boldly to the central shrine along
the arduous but well-tried avenues of Judgment and Industry.



IV


MODERATION


Judgment, Industry, and Health, as the instruments of success, depend
largely on a fourth quality, which may be called either restraint or
moderation. The successful men of these arduous days are those who
control themselves strictly.

Those who are learned in the past may point out exceptions to this rule.
But Charles James Fox or Bolingbroke were only competing with equals in
the art of genteel debauchery. Their habits were those of their
competitors. They were not fighting men who safeguarded their health and
kept a cool head in the morning. It is impossible to imagine to-day a
leader of the Opposition who, after a night of gambling at faro, would
go down without a breakfast or a bath to develop an important attack on
the Government. The days of the brilliant debauchee are over.
Politicians no longer retire for good at forty to nurse the gout. The
antagonists that careless genius would have to meet in the modern world
would be of sterner stuff.