An experienced captain is not greatly impressed by a vessel’s paint. He may admire it—there is no professional obligation to be indifferent to beauty—but his attention travels beyond the agreeable surface. He notices the trim, the order on deck, the manner in which a line has been secured. He notices whether the crew move with purpose or with that conspicuous agitation which sometimes passes for diligence. A well-kept ship does not merely look handsome. It gives the impression that its difficulties have been considered in advance.
There is a human equivalent of this seaworthiness. Certain people enter a room without bringing the weather in with them. Their affairs may be extensive, their obligations numerous, their circumstances less settled than appearances suggest; nevertheless, nothing about them seems to demand an immediate rescue. They can attend to a conversation without the air of having abandoned a burning building to do so. They appear to possess that most attractive of private fortunes: sufficient room in the mind for something other than their own predicament.
The word prosperous suits them rather better than successful. Success may still be breathless. Prosperity, at least in its more civilized expression, has had time to sit down. What the captain’s eye detects in such a person is not necessarily wealth. It is the apparent soundness of the arrangement. The bearing is easy because something beneath it seems to hold. There is no audible knocking in the machinery, no urgent procession of small failures making its way towards the bridge. The visible calm suggests an invisible competence.
And invisible competence is seldom an accidental possession.
