Leaving aside a few strange exceptions, a musician is not...

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Leaving aside a few strange exceptions, a musician is not a soldier, a barrister not a stockbroker, a poet not a man of business, or a politician a great organiser. Anyone who had strayed in youth to the wrong profession and failed might yet prove himself an immense success in another, and these broad distinctions at the top ramify downwards until the general truth is equally applicable to all the subdivisions of business and even to all the administrative sections of particular firms.

To take a single practical instance, there is the department of salesmanship and the department of finance. Salesmanship requires, above all, the spirit of optimism. That same spirit carried into the sphere of finance might ruin a firm. The success in one branch might therefore well be the failure in the other, and vice versa. No young man, therefore, has failed until he has succeeded.

If I had to choose one single and celebrated instance of this doctrine I should find it in the career of Lord Reading, Viceroy of India.

It may be objected that, as he is of the Jewish race and religion, his is not a fair test case by which to try the abilities and aptitudes of the young men of Great Britain. I do not accept the distinction. The powers and mental aptitudes of the Jews are exactly the same as ours, except that they come to full flower earlier. The precocity of this maturity is interpreted as a special genius for affairs--which it is not.

Lord Reading started his career on the Stock Exchange, where he failed utterly. No doubt experience would have brought him a reasonable measure of success; but it was equally clear that this was not the sphere for his preeminent abilities. He therefore broke boldly away and entered at the Bar, where his intellect secured him a reputation and an income, especially in commercial cases, which left his competitors divided between admiration and annoyance. In a single year he made £40,000. The peg had found the round hole. His eminence procured him the Attorney-Generalship. Yet with all his ability and his personal popularity he was not a real success in the House of Commons. Parliamentary warfare was not his aptitude. So he became Lord Chief Justice. His great personal character and reputation gave Lord Reading in his new position a certain reputation as a great Lord Chief. From my own limited experience I do not agree. I had to watch closely a certain case he was trying, and I did not think Lord Reading was a great judge. He failed to carry the jury with him; the final Court of Appeal ordered a new trial, which resulted in the reversal of the judgment. Such a thing might happen to any judge, but a strong one would have put a prompt end to proceedings which were obviously vexatious and entailed great cost by the delay on defendants, who had obviously been dragged improperly into the action. But his real opportunity came with his mission to the United States during the war. No ambassador had ever achieved such popularity and influence or brought back such rich sheaves with him. As a diplomatist, a man of law, and a man of business, he shone supreme. Once more, since his days at the commercial bar, he had found the real field for his talents.

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