and common sense by all
means, but do not expect that they will help you to success. Because
they will not. I shall no doubt be told that what I have just written
has an immoral tendency, and is a direct encouragement to sloth,
thriftlessness, etc. One of our chief national faults is our
hypocritical desire to suppress the truth on the pretext that to admit
it would encourage sin, whereas the real explanation is that we are
afraid of the truth. I will not be guilty of that fault. I do like to
look a fact in the face without blinking. I am fully persuaded that,
per head, there is more of the virtues in the unsuccessful majority
than in the successful minority. In London alone are there not
hundreds of miles of streets crammed with industry, frugality, and
prudence? Some of the most brilliant men I have known have been
failures, and not through lack of character either. And some of the
least gifted have been marvellously successful. It is impossible to
point to a single branch of human activity in which success can be
explained by the conventional principles that find general acceptance.
I hear you, O reader, murmuring to yourself: "This is all very well,
but he is simply being paradoxical for his own diversion." I would
that I could persuade you of my intense seriousness! I have
endeavoured to show what does not make success. I will next endeavour
to show what does make it. But my hope is forlorn.

THE INWARDNESS OF SUCCESS

Of course, one can no more explain success than one can explain
Beethoven's C minor symphony. One may state what key it is written in,
and make expert reflections upon its form, and catalogue its themes,
and relate it to symphonies that preceded it and symphonies that
followed it, but in the end one is reduced to saying that the C minor
symphony is beautiful--because it is. In the same manner one is
reduced to saying that the sole real difference between success and
failure is that success succeeds. This being frankly admitted at the
outset, I will allow myself to assert that there are three sorts of
success. Success A is the accidental sort. It is due to the thing we
call chance, and to nothing else. We are all of us still very
superstitious, and the caprices of chance have a singular effect upon
us. Suppose that I go to Monte Carlo and announce to a friend my firm
conviction that red will turn up next time, and I back red for the
maximum and red does turn up; my friend, in spite of his intelle