e how many persons
there are in the world who think themselves unappreciated. Such are not
generally people who have tried and failed;--an honest failure very
often brings a wholesome sense of incompetence;--but they are generally
persons who think that they have never had a chance of showing what is
in them, speakers who have found their audiences unresponsive, writers
who have been discouraged by finding their amateur efforts unsaleable,
men who lament the unsuitability of their profession to their
abilities, women who find themselves living in what they call a
thoroughly unsympathetic circle. The failure here lies in an incapacity
to believe in one's own inefficiency, and a sturdy persuasion of the
malevolence of others.

Here is a soil in which fears spring up like thorns and briars.
"Whatever I do or say, I shall be passed over and slighted, I shall
always find people determined to exclude and neglect me!" I know
myself, only too well, how fertile the brain is in discovering almost
any reason for a failure except what is generally the real reason, that
the work was badly done. And the more eager one is for personal
recognition and patent success, the more sickened one is by any hint of
contempt and derision.

But it is quite possible, as I also know from personal experience, to
go patiently and humbly to work again, to face the reasons for failure,
to learn to enjoy work, to banish from the mind the uneasy hope of
personal distinction. We may try to discern the humour of Providence,
because I am as certain as I can be of anything that we are humorously
treated as well as lovingly regarded. Let me relate two small incidents
which did me a great deal of good at a time of self-importance. I was
once asked to give a lecture, and it was widely announced. I saw my own
name in capital letters upon advertisements displayed in the street. On
the evening appointed, I went to the place, and met the chairman of the
meeting and some of the officials in a room adjoining the hall where I
was to speak. We bowed and smiled, paid mutual compliments,
congratulated each other on the importance of the occasion. At last the
chairman consulted his watch and said it was time to be beginning. A
procession was formed, a door was majestically thrown open by an
attendant, and we walked with infinite solemnity on to the platform of
an entirely empty hall, with rows of benches all wholly unfurnished
with guests. I think it was one of the most