extraordinarily rare for a man who has conquered the initial
difficulties of success in money-making, if his work is honest, to come
to disaster. None the less, if the young man hears these "ancestral
voices prophesying war," and shivers a little in his bed at night, he
will be none the worse for the cold douche of doubt and enmity.

Indeed, so long as youth keeps its head it will be the better for the
successive hurdles which obstructive age, or even middle-age, puts in
its path. A few stumbles will teach it care in approaching the next
jump.

The only real cure for arrogance is a check--not an absolute failure.
For complete disaster is as likely to breed the arrogance of despair as
supreme triumph is to breed the arrogance of invincibility. A set-back
is the best cure for arrogance.

It would be a false assumption to suppose that temporary humiliations or
mistakes can rid one definitely and finally of the vice I am describing.
Arrogance seems too closely knit into the very fibre of early success.
The firsthand experience of youth is not sufficient to effect the
cure--and it may be that no years and no experience will purge the mind
of this natural tendency. When Pitt publicly announced at twenty-three
that he would never take anything less than Cabinet rank he was
undoubtedly arrogant. He became Premier at twenty-four. But age and
experience moderated his supreme haughtiness, leaving at the end a
residue of pure self-confidence which enabled him to bear up against
blow after blow in the effort to save the State.

Arrogance, tempered by experience and defeat, may thus produce in the
end the most effective type of character. But it seems a pity that youth