same way, I said. Two words, each of two
letters, will serve to distinguish two classes of human beings who
constitute the principal divisions of mankind. Can any of you tell what
those two words are?

"Give me five letters," cried Number Seven, "and I can solve your
problem! F-o-o-l-s,--those five letters will give you the first and
largest half. For the other fraction"--

Oh, but, said I, I restrict you absolutely to two letters. If you are
going to take five, you may as well take twenty or a hundred.

After a few attempts, the company gave it up. The nearest approach to
the correct answer was Number Five's guess of Oh and Ah: Oh signifying
eternal striving after an ideal, which belongs to one kind of nature; and
Ah the satisfaction of the other kind of nature, which rests at ease in
what it has attained.

Good! I said to Number Five, but not the answer I am after. The great
division between human beings is into the Ifs and the Ases.

"Is the last word to be spelt with one or two s's?" asked the young
Doctor.

The company laughed feebly at this question. I answered it soberly. With
one s. There are more foolish people among the Ifs than there are among
the Ases.

The company looked puzzled, and asked for an explanation.

This is the meaning of those two words as I interpret them: If it
were,--if it might be,--if it could be,--if it had been. One portion of
mankind go through life always regretting, always whining, always
imagining. These are the people whose backbones remain cartilaginous all
their lives long, as do those of certain other vertebrate animals,--the
sturgeons, for instance. A good many poets must be classed with this
group of vertebrates.

As it is,--this is the way in which the other class of people look at the
conditions in which they find themselves. They may be optimists or
pessimists, they are very largely optimists,--but, taking things just as
they find them, they adjust the facts to their wishes if they can; and if
they cannot, then they adjust themselves to the facts. I venture to say
that if one should count the Ifs and the Ases in the conversation of his
acquaintances, he would find the more able and important persons among
them--statesmen, generals, men of business--among the Ases, and the
majority of the conspicuous failures among the Ifs. I don't know but
this would be as good a test as that of Gideon,--lapping the water or
taking it up in the hand. I have a poetical friend whose