e that he exaggerates the importance of everything that
concerns him.

This condition is a much more common one than one might at first
believe. Many an occurrence which, when it happens to some one else,
seems to us quite devoid of interest, becomes, when it directly affects
us, a matter to compel the attention of others, to the extent that we
find ourselves chilled and disappointed when we discover that we are the
victims of that indifference which we were prepared to exhibit toward
other people under similar circumstances.

The consciousness of our own worth must not be confounded with that
adoration of self which transforms poise into egotism.

It is a good thing to know one's own powers sufficiently well to
undertake only such tasks as are certainly within the scope of one's
abilities.

To believe oneself more capable than one really is, is a fault that is
far too common. It is, nevertheless, less harmful in the long run than
the failing which is its exact antithesis. Lack of confidence in one's
own powers is the source of every kind of feebleness and of all
unsuccess.

It is for this reason that poise never can exist without another
quality, that correctness of judgment which, in giving us the breadth of
mind to know exactly how much we are capable of, permits us to undertake
our tasks without boasting and without hesitation.

Soundness of judgment is the faculty of being able to appreciate the
merits of our neighbors without cherishing any illusions as to our own,
and of being able to do this so exactly that we can with assurance carry
out to its end any undertaking, knowing that the result must be, barring
accidents, precisely what we have foreseen.

This being the case, what possible reason can we have for depreciating
ourselves or for lacking poise?

Timid people suffer without recognizing their own defects in the matter
of insight.

They torture themselves by building their judgments upon indications and
not upon facts.

If the perception of a man of resolution causes him to understand at
once the emptiness of criticisms based on envy or spleen, the timid man,
always ready to seize upon anything that can be possibly construed into
an appearance of ridicule directed against himself, will give up a
project that he hears criticized without stopping to weigh the value of
the arguments advanced.

Far from arguing the question out, or attempting a rebuttal, he never
even dreams of it. The very though