n is veiled by new disappointments
and narrowed by continual reservations; when he is overwhelmed by the
complexity of his undertaking--then let him unhearten himself, for he is
succeeding. The history of success in any art--and machine-tending is an
art--is a history of recommencements, of the dispersal and reforming of
doubts, of an ever-increasing conception of the extent of the territory
unconquered, and an ever-decreasing conception of the extent of the
territory conquered.

It is remarkable that, though no enterprise could possibly present more
diverse and changeful excitements than the mastering of the brain, the
second great danger which threatens its ultimate success is nothing but
a mere drying-up of enthusiasm for it! One would have thought that in an
affair which concerned him so nearly, in an affair whose results might
be in a very strict sense vital to him, in an affair upon which his
happiness and misery might certainly turn, a man would not weary from
sheer tedium. Nevertheless, it is so. Again and again I have noticed the
abandonment, temporary or permanent, of this mighty and thrilling
enterprise from simple lack of interest. And I imagine that, in
practically all cases save those in which an exceptional original force
of will renders the enterprise scarcely necessary, the interest in it
will languish unless it is regularly nourished from without. Now, the
interest in it cannot be nourished from without by means of conversation
with other brain-tamers. There are certain things which may not be
discussed by sanely organised people; and this is one. The affair is
too intimate, and it is also too moral. Even after only a few minutes'
vocalisation on this subject a deadly infection seems to creep into the
air--the infection of priggishness. (Or am I mistaken, and do I fancy
this horror? No; I cannot believe that I am mistaken.)

Hence the nourishment must be obtained by reading; a little reading
every day. I suppose there are some thousands of authors who have
written with more or less sincerity on the management of the human
machine. But the two which, for me, stand out easily above all the rest
are Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Epictetus. Not much has been
discovered since their time. 'The perfecting of life is a power residing
in the soul,' wrote Marcus Aurelius in the ninth book of _To Himself_,
over seventeen hundred years ago. Marcus Aurelius is assuredly regarded
as the greatest of writers in the h