. "The first
time you try to swim," shouts the advertisement, "for instance, you
sink; and the first time you try to ride a bicycle you fall off. But the
ability to do these things was born in you. And shortly you can both
swim and ride. Then you wonder why you could not always do these things.
They seem so absurdly simple." It may be that there are people who have
learned to swim and to ride a bicycle by sitting in a chair and
cultivating certain inherent qualities but we have never heard of them.
Everybody that we ever knew worked and worked hard swimming and riding
before they learned. The only way to learn to do a job is to do it, and
the only way to succeed is to work. Any school or any person who says
that "the most important thing for you to do is not to work, but first
to find the short road to success. After that you may safely work all
you like--but as a matter of fact, you won't have to work very hard," is
a liar and a menace to the country and to business.

But the value of personality is not to be under-estimated. "Nature,"
says Thackeray somewhere in "The Virginians," "has written a letter of
credit upon some men's faces, which is honored almost wherever
presented. Harry Warrington's [Harry Warrington was the hero who brought
about this observation] countenance was so stamped in his youth. His
eyes were so bright, his cheeks so red and healthy, his look so frank
and open, that almost all who beheld him, nay, even those who cheated
him, trusted him." It was the "letter of credit" stamped upon the face
of Roosevelt, pledge of the character which lay behind it, which made
him the idol of the American people.

Personality is hard to analyze and harder still to acquire. The usual
advice given to one who is trying to cultivate a pleasing manner and
address is "Be natural," but this cannot be taken too literally. Most of
us find it perfectly natural to be cross and disagreeable under trying
circumstances. It would be natural for a man to cry out profane words
when a woman grinds down on his corn but it would not be polite. It was
natural for Uriah Heep to wriggle like an eel, but that did not make it
any the less detestable. It was natural, considering the past history of
Germany and the system under which he was educated, for the Kaiser to
want to be lord of the world, but that did not make it any the less
horrible.

Another bromidic piece of advice is "Be perfectly frank and sincere."
But this, too, has its