for not being as reasonable, as archangelic as I am myself! But
when it comes to people!... Well, that is
'living,' then! The art of life, the art of extracting all its power
from the human machine, does not lie chiefly in processes of
bookish-culture, nor in contemplations of the beauty and majesty of
existence. It lies chiefly in keeping the peace, the whole peace, and
nothing but the peace, with those with whom one is 'thrown.' Is it in
sitting ecstatic over Shelley, Shakespeare, or Herbert Spencer, solitary
in my room of a night, that I am 'improving myself' and learning to
live? Or is it in watching over all my daily human contacts? Do not seek
to escape the comparison by insinuating that I despise study, or by
pointing out that the eternal verities are beyond dailiness. Nothing of
the kind! I am so 'silly' about books that merely to possess them gives
me pleasure. And if the verities are good for eternity they ought to be
good for a day. If I cannot exchange them for daily coin--if I can't
buy happiness for a single day because I've nothing less than an eternal
verity about me and nobody has sufficient change--then my eternal verity
is not an eternal verity. It is merely an unnegotiable bit of glass
(called a diamond), or even a note on the Bank of Engraving.

I can say to myself when I arise in the morning: 'I am master of my
brain. No one can get in there and rage about like a bull in a china
shop. If my companions on the planet's crust choose to rage about they
cannot affect _me_! I will not let them. I have power to maintain my own
calm, and I will. No earthly being can force me to be false to my
principles, or to be blind to the beauty of the universe, or to be
gloomy, or to be irritable, or to complain against my lot. For these
things depend on the brain; cheerfulness, kindliness, and honest
thinking are all within the department of the brain. The disciplined
brain can accomplish them. And my brain is disciplined, and I will
discipline it more and more as the days pass. I am, therefore,
independent of hazard, and I will back myself to conduct all intercourse
as becomes a rational creature.' ... I can say this. I can ram this
argument by force of will into my brain, and by dint of repeating it
often enough I shall assuredly arrive at the supreme virtues of reason.
I should assuredly conquer--the brain being such a machine of
habit--even if I did not take the trouble to consider in the slightest
degree what ma