How different the Pagan and Stoical feeling was from this has
been admirably expressed in a famous quotation. Addison makes
the great Stoic say--

"'Tis not in mortals to command success;
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."

But the spirit of Romance and Christendom, the spirit which is in
every lover, the spirit which has bestridden the earth with European
adventure, is quite opposite. 'Tis not in mortals to deserve success.
But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll obtain it.

And this gay humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready
for an infinity of unmerited triumphs, this secret is so simple that every
one has supposed that it must be something quite sinister and mysterious.
Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice.
Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride.
It is mistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes
with a certain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity.
Humility will always, by preference, go clad in scarlet and gold;
pride is that which refuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please
it too much. In a word, the failure of this virtue actually lies
in its success; it is too successful as an investment to be believed
in as a virtue. Humility is not merely too good for this world;
it is too practical for this world; I had almost said it is too
worldly for this world.

The instance most quoted in our day is the thing called the humility
of the man of science; and certainly it is a good instance as well
as a modern one. Men find it extremely difficult to believe