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,