New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-12-29
Napoleons All


Arc YOU masterful? Have you domi-
mating personality? Do you stand hat In
hand or can YOU smash your ideas across!
Very likely those questions have never
occurred to YOU But if they have, ana
YOU feel warnings almost any magazine
will show you advertisements of mastertul
treatises Offering TO teach you masterful-
ness while YOU wait. You can be Ma
poleon at so much a volume, c. o. D., re-
turnable in three days without risk.
There is no one to blame save yourself II
you delay.
Such being the advertising fact, 1t does
seen, strange that the whole stage is not
cluttered up with Napoleons. Bishops IN
their shovel hats ought, indeed, to be as
plentiful as tabby cats. Instead, accord
ing to our latest advices from the outer
Office. supported by our own observation
and patient endurance, it is quite as dlt-
fcult as ever TO discover an ordinarily
obedient and faithful Office boy. The
theory may be suggested that all ONCE
BOYS have turned into Napoleons OF one
thing or another under the tuition OF the
viii Power books. But "No' we are IN
formed Dominating personalities are
almost as scarce as Office boys. Good
work Of any character is not one WHIT
easier to get than in those Dark Ages
when the first Handy Guide TO Masterful-
ness had yet to be published.
There is quite another theory OF the
thing as a matter of fact which seems
worth suggesting II has been succlnctiy
stated by that ready and intelligent aid
TO lazy thinkers. Mr. Arnold Bennett, IN
some advice 10 4 young woman who had
yearned to amount TO something and who
had failed:
L. seems 10 me that you may have been
running your delightful head UP against an
impossible proposition. Perhaps you have
. been hoping TO create energy in yourself.
Now. You cannot create energy, either IN
Yourself or elsewhere. Nobody can. lou
can only set energy free, loosen il, trans
form ir. direct IL
An individual il born with certain
amount OF energy and no more. Just as
You cannot pour i've Nlhi - VHS Va " o"i-N''
las a rule you cannot pour even four
quarts. so you cannot extract from that
individual more energy than there is in
him. And, what s moro important, you
cannot nut additional quantities Of energy
into him. You may sometimes seem 20 be
putting energy into him. but you arc not;
you are simply setting his original energy
free. applying a match 10 the coal or fan
ming tie fire. An individual is an island
on whose rocky shores no ship can ever land
that most mysterious commodity-enersy.
You may transfusc blood, but not the in
applicable force that makes the heart beat
and deies circumstance
BY this theory what one really needs
is a match or, perhaps, an outlet. A
chance to 20 to it in the work you have
always hankered after may set your fund
Of energy free. Or woman, or play
or the measles, or great war, or almost
any little thing, may put you ablaze. But
the stuff is there all the while-or 1t IS
not. And no amount of mere prayer and
fasting, or rolling Of the eyes, or deep
breathing or will exercise can add to it.
In fact, reasonable supply Of obstacles
may be good for It.
Which is the more hopeful doctrine?
Personally we incline to the Arnold Ben
nett notion. But for those who enjoy
the bootstrap philosophy, nothing is more
grateful and encouraging, After all, tug
ging at ones bootstraps may be an eX-
ceedingy healthful and invigorating exer-
else for the muscles of the back--even
though its elevating power is quite neg
ligible.