VI.


How I envy those who become prudent without thwackings of experience!
Such men seem to be not uncommon. I don't mean cold-blooded calculators
of profit and loss in life's possibilities; nor yet the plodding dull,
who never have imagination enough to quit the beaten track of security;
but bright-witted and large-hearted fellows who seem always to be led by
common sense, who go steadily from stage to stage of life, doing the
right, the prudent things, guilty of no vagaries, winning respect by
natural progress, seldom needing aid themselves, often helpful to others,
and, through all, good-tempered, deliberate, happy. How I envy them!

For of myself it might be said that whatever folly is possible to a
moneyless man, that folly I have at one time or another committed. Within
my nature there seemed to be no faculty of rational self-guidance. Boy
and man, I blundered into every ditch and bog which lay within sight of
my way. Never did silly mortal reap such harvest of experience; never
had any one so many bruises to show for it. Thwack, thwack! No sooner
had I recovered from one sound drubbing than I put myself in the way of
another. "Unpractical" I was called by those who spoke mildly; "idiot"--I
am sure--by many a ruder tongue. And idiot I see myself, whenever I
glance back over the long, devious road. Something, obviously, I lacked
from the beginning, some balancing principle granted to most men in one
or another degree. I had brains, but they were no help to me in the
common circumstances of life. But for the good fortune which plucked me
out of my mazes and set me in paradise, I should no doubt have blundered