FEAR 
381 
and the other boys were not sympathetic about kidneys, 
regarding them mostly as satisfactory parts of the body to 
punch. 
Imagine my misery! The most powerful of all my 
passions-bar sloth-is Pride; and here was I, the object of 
universal contempt. So, when I was able to determine my 
own way of life, I observed mildly "Pike's Peak or bust!" and 
chose for my sports the two, mountain 
climbing and 
big-game shooting, reputed the most dangerous. It was a 
desperate remedy, but it worked. No half measures, either! I 
used to wander into the jungle alone, looking for tigers, and 
trusting to my sense of direction to take me back to camp. 
All my mountain climbing was guideless, and a very great 
deal of it solitary. 
Well, this is not an example for you to copy, is it? But it 
gives an idea of the principle "Take the bull by the horns." A 
practice easier to imitate was this following. In most great 
cities, always in Eastern cities, are black slums. Here one may 
find blind alleys, dark doorways open to unlighted houses. 
One may explore such places, looking for adventure-and it 
was rather a point of honour to accept the challenge in 
whatever form it took. Again, one may walk with deliberate 
carelessness into the traffic; this practice does not in my 
considerable 
experience, 
conduce 
to one's personal 
popularity . Another idea was to hasten to cholera-stricken 
cities, to places where Yellow Jack, plague, typhoid and 
typhus, dysentery (et haec turba rnalarum) were endemic; 
and (of course) big-game hunting takes one to the certainty 
of malarial fever, with no doctors (or worse, Bengali 
doctors!) within many a league. 
The general principle seems to be "This boat carries Caesar 
and his Fortunes!" and no doubt Pride in its most Satanic 
degree is one's greatest asset. But the essence of the practice, 
as a practice, is to seek out and to face what one fears. Do 
not forget that courage implies fear-what else should fear be 
useful for? 
Of course, fears differ greatly both in quality and in