The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Human Machine, by E. Arnold Bennett
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Title: The Human Machine
Author: E. Arnold Bennett
Release Date: July 3, 2004 [EBook #12811]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUMAN MACHINE ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.
THE HUMAN MACHINE
BY ARNOLD BENNETT
_First Published November 1908
Second Edition September 1910
Third Edition April 1911
Fourth Edition August 1912
Fifth Edition January 1913
Sixth Edition August 1913_
CONTENTS
I
TAKING ONESELF FOR GRANTED
II
AMATEURS IN THE ART OF LIVING
III
THE BRAIN AS A GENTLEMAN-AT-LARGE
IV
THE FIRST PRACTICAL STEP
V
HABIT-FORMING BY CONCENTRATION
VI
LORD OVER THE NODDLE
VII
WHAT 'LIVING' CHIEFLY IS
VIII
THE DAILY FRICTION
IX
'FIRE!'
X
MISCHIEVOUSLY OVERWORKING IT
XI
AN INTERLUDE
XII
AN INTEREST IN LIFE
XIII
SUCCESS AND FAILURE
XIV
A MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT
XV
L.S.D.
XVI
REASON, REASON!
I
TAKING ONESELF FOR GRANTED
There are men who are capable of loving a machine more deeply than they
can love a woman. They are among the happiest men on earth. This is not
a sneer meanly shot from cover at women. It is simply a statement of
notorious fact. Men who worry themselves to distraction over the
perfecting of a machine are indubitably blessed beyond their kind. Most
of us have known such men. Yesterday they were constructing motorcars.
But to-day aeroplanes are in the air--or, at any rate, they ought to be,
according to the inventors. Watch the inventors. Invention is not
usually their principal business. They must invent in their spare time.
They must invent before breakfast, invent in the Strand between Lyons's
and the office, invent after dinner, invent on Sundays. See with what
ardour they rush home of a night! See how they seize a half-holiday,
like hungry dogs a bone! They don't want golf, bridge, limericks,
novels, illustrated magazines, clubs, whisky, starting-prices, hints
about neckties, political meetings, yarns, comic songs, anturic salts,
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