THE PRICE OF EXPERIENCE. 3 



money ; if they did, the dearness of the purchase, 

 or its reverse, would depend on how much that 

 experience had cost, and how much it had been 

 wanted. To many it would be cheap at one half 

 their fortune, for it might save the other. A great 

 many do not get it so cheap. I know some who 

 have spent about eighty per cent of their capital, 

 and, so far as I can perceive, have not yet got 

 hold of any of this valuable commodity (expe- 

 rience); or, at least, if they have, they do not 

 seem to make use of it. I conclude they excuse 

 themselves for not doing this, as a well-known cha- 

 racter in Leicestershire did for not stopping, on 

 his friend getting a most desperate fall. Being 

 asked if his friend was not seriously hurt: "I 

 should think he was killed," said he, " from the 

 way I saw him lie ; but the pace was too good to 

 stop to inquire." 



Now with respect to gaining experience by con- 

 stant loss, the fact is, many do gain it ; but what 

 they do gain is not of the right or useful sort. 

 They merely gain that which tells them they are 

 losing money ; but they do not gain that which 

 would make them act more judiciously. And why 

 they do not is very easily accounted for. Instead 

 of attributing their losses or disappointments to 

 any error in their management, they will gene- 

 rally impute it to their ill-luck, and in a certain 

 degree they are right ; but their ill-luck consists 



