Was EK arrogant, or was he just a very confident man, having been there and done that?
Do you believe what he wrote, claiming in print to have actually been there and done that for better than 50 years? Or do you think that he "puffed" his resume to make himself appear to be greater than he really was?
Have you ever met a successful person in any field, other than prehaps the clergy, who didn't have a big ego?
There are definitions of those 2 words, arrogance and confidence:
Arrogance = 1. offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.
Confidence = 1. full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing: We have every confidence in their ability to succeed.
2. belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance: His lack of confidence defeated him.
3. certitude; assurance: He described the situation with such confidence that the audience believed him completely.
From what I have read, most people found EK to be very accessible and easy to talk to. If you knocked on his front door in Salmon, ID, he was more likely to invite you in for a cup of coffee then he was to slam the door in your face. That doesn't sound like an arrogant man to me and it about 180-degrees opposite of the stories that you hear about the greatest gun writer of his time, the late great Jack O'C.
Jeff
