owd there can be no
irritation.

There is a certain good-breeding which leads us to avoid friction
with another's nervous system. It must, however, be an avoidance
inside as well as outside. The subterfuge of holding one's tongue
never works in the end. There is a subtle communication from one
nervous system to another which is more insinuating than any verbal
intercourse. Those nearest us, and whom we really love best, are
often the very persons by whom we are most annoyed. As we learn to
keep a courteous distance from their personal peculiarities our love
grows stronger and more real; and an open frankness in our relation
is more nearly possible. Strangely enough, too, the personal
peculiarities sometimes disappear. It is possible, and quite as
necessary, to treat one's own nervous system with this distant
courtesy.

This brings us to the second simple truth. In nine cases out of ten
the cause of this nervous irritation is in ourselves. If a man loses
his temper and rouses us to a return attack, how can we blame him?
Are we not quite as bad in hitting back? To be sure, he began it.
But did he? How do we know what roused him? Then, too, he might have
poured volleys of abuse upon us, and not provoked an angry retort,
if the temper had not been latent within us, to begin with. So it is
with minor matters. In direct proportion to our freedom from others
is our power for appreciating their good points; just in proportion
to our slavery to their tricks and their habits are we blinded to
their good points and open to increased irritation from their bad
ones. It is curious that it should work that way, but it does. If
there is nothing in us to be roused, we are all free; if we are not
free, it is because there is something in us akin to that which
rouses us. This is hard to acknowledge. But it puts our attitude to
others on a good clean basis, and brings us into reality and out of
private theatricals; not to mention a clearing of the nervous system
which gives us new power.

There is one trouble in dealing with people which does not affect
all of us, but which causes enough pain and suffering to those who
are under its influence to make up for the immunity of the rest.
That is, the strong feeling that many of us have that it is our duty
to reform those about us whose life and ways are not according to
our ideas of right.

No one ever forced another to reform, against that other's will. It
may have appeared so; but ther