uiring of poise.

We are not now speaking of those idle fancies which are no more than
manifestations of nervousness. We have in mind rather that controlled
and enduring purpose which arms the heart against the assaults of the
emotions by giving it the strength to overcome them.

There are many cases even in which will-power has led to their entire
suppression.

This happens more particularly in the case of those artificial emotions
that the man of resolution ignores completely, but which cause agony to
the timid who do not know how to escape them, and exaggerate them to
excess.

This abnormal development of their personalities is the peculiarity of
the timid, which their fitful efforts of will only heighten, alienating
from them the sympathy which might be of assistance to them.

They take refuge in a species of mischievous and fruitless activity,
leaving the field open to the development of all sorts of imaginary ills
that argument does not serve to combat.

Their ego, whose importance is in no way counterbalanced by their
appreciation of the friends they keep at a distance, fills their entire
existence to such an extent that they have no doubt whatever that, when
they are in public, every eye is, of necessity, fixt upon them.

Their negative will leaves them at the mercy of every sort of emotion,
which, in arousing in them the necessity of a reaction they feel
themselves powerless to realize, reduces them to a state of inferiority
that, when it becomes known, is the source of grave embarrassment to
them.

The power of will which sustains those who wish to acquire the habit of
poise is, then, the capacity to accomplish acts solely because one has
the ardent desire to achieve them.

We are now speaking, understand, neither of extreme heroism or of
impossibilities.

Another point presents itself here. Willpower, in order to preserve its
energy, must be sustained and fixt. At this price alone can we achieve
poise. We must, therefore, thoroughly saturate ourselves with this
principle: Reasoning-power is an essential element in the upbuilding of
poise.

It is reasoning-power which teaches us to distinguish between those
things that we must be careful to avoid and those which are part and
parcel of the domain of exaggeration and fantasy.

It is also by means of reasoning that we arrive at the proper
appreciation of the just mean that we must observe. It is by its aid
that we are enabled to disentangle those