SELF KNOWLEDGE 



adapted to your aspirations. Better a good artisan 

 than a poor artist. 



Nor is ambition a sure guide to capacity. Many 

 a person aspires to do what he can never do; indeed it 

 seems as if a large proportion of minds aim in the wrong 

 direction. This perhaps is largely because ambition 

 is so much a matter of propinquity. You will find 

 nine times out of ten that sundry relatives of a literary 

 man try their hand sooner or later at writing, though 

 they had no inherent bent in that direction. It is 

 natural that we should wish to be able to do the things 

 that we see our friends doing. But the desire is illusive. 

 You should strive to live your own life, not merely to 

 reflect the life of another. 



And worst of all, if you try to do a thing for which 

 you are not adapted, you will fail to gain the two great 

 keys to success self-confidence and enthusiasm. How 

 can you be confident about the thing you find hard to 

 do but which your friend does with ease? How can 

 you love a task that you do so ill ? But, on the other 

 hand, if you find the task for which you are adapted, 

 your measure of success will give you confidence; con- 

 fidence will lead to yet keener application, and this to yet 

 greater success. Meanwhile success is the sure har- 

 binger of enthusiasm ; and enthusiasm, needless to say, 

 is in turn the sure promoter of unremitting effort. En- 

 thusiasm, indeed, is the very core of creative genius. 

 "Without enthusiasm," says Emerson, voicing the 

 experience of all mankind, "no great work was ever 

 yet accomplished." 



Yet even here another word of caution. Be an en- 

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