Evening star., 1933-05-10

premely confident In the face OF some
Intellectually humble person who knows
the difference between knowledge and
bombast, but seldom, II ever, says 50!
There is the whole thing In . nut
shell.
The person who is not q bit back
ward about proclaiming his opinions,
whether he has anything to back them
up or not, seldom gets called" for his
misdeed, because the person to whom
he raves usually does not find 1t ex-
pedient to bait the boaster to his face.
Ready duelling ability with mental
rapierS Is not the possession, as the
usual thing, Of the man or woman who
has the proper humility. in the face Of
knowledge.
He has too great respect for knowl-
edge, in the flrst place
He knows, from his little knowledge,
that wisdom needs no defense from
such persons.
Ones fire must be reserved for COM
batting the honest errors Of those who
have made some approach to wisdom,
but who have made errors Of judgment
somewhere along the line.
These ranters and boosters, these
self-proclained experts" on every sub
ject under the sun, who bothers about
them anyway?
Arrogance ever defeats its own pur-
It's effort to deprecate the knowledge
Of another, by setting up . counter
claim, Immediately after proclaiming its
own ignorance, Is essentially an attemps
to belittle.
BY admitting that it knows nothing.
and then attempting to say something.
it says, in effect: Even my no-knowl-
edge is better than your some-knowl-
edge"
To this there is properly no answer,
except by way of the brawl method.
tricks into the realm Of mentality, and
this Is precisely what the decent mind
will not do.
As a corollary, the mind which likes
to inject, or to attempt to inject, the
physical into the mental, has another
cute little trick up its flowing sleeve.
These people always know somebody
else who has something more wonder
full. more beautiful, more interesting.
Mentality has achieved something,
modest though 1t may be. and, being
human, desires 1t to receive . little
praise.
To praise, however, and let it 60 at
that, Is not in the book Of conduct Of
our hero or heroine today.
She-and almost always 1t Is she, in
this neat specialty-will utter . few
mouthfuls Of praise-at q price.
The price is to be able to instance,
just as an afterthought, and perhaps
some time later, that Mr.. So-and-So,
who the victim may or may not know,
has q very, very beautiful collection.
The way this is put usually carries
the implication that some way Mr.. So
and-Sos efforts have been q trifle more
successful, or that they have cost more
money, or manage to carry more in
trigue.
Mr.. So-and-So Is such q charming
man." how could he help but attain
superior results?
The trouble with this trick Is that 1t
only works once on the same person,
or not more than twice, even with the
most innocent.
They soon realize that Madame Is
simply blowing her own horn by
blowing some one else's, safely, where
they can't hear her.
One smiles, but says nothing.
Madame, no doubt, when she visits
the garden Of Mr. So-and-So, will say,
"Ah. beautiful. I was over at Mr.
Templeton Jones' the other day, and 1t
was simply wonderful, q really ravish-
ing garden, my dear, 50 exquisite, so
filled with really interesting things"
Alas noOr Mr. Eo-and-Soi