get stories out of them?"

Printing looked to all of us at first just masses of meaningless little
marks.

But after a few days at school how things did begin to clear up! It
wasn't a jumble after all. There was something to it. It straightened
itself out until the funny little marks became significant. Each of them
had a meaning and the same meaning under all conditions. Through them
your whole outlook on life became deepened and broadened--all because
you learned the meaning of twenty-six little letters and their
combinations!

Reading People

Learning to read men and women is a more delightful process than
learning to read books, for every person you see is a true story, more
romantic and absorbing than any ever bound in covers.

Learning to read people is also a simpler process than learning to read
books because there are fewer letters in the human alphabet. Though man
seems to the untrained eye a mystifying mass of "funny little marks," he
is not now difficult to analyze.

Only a Few Feelings

This is because there are after all but a few kinds of human feelings.
Some form of hunger, love, hate, fear, hope or ambition gives rise to
every human emotion and every human thought.

Thoughts Bring Actions

Now our actions follow our thoughts. Every thought, however
transitory, causes muscular action, which leaves its trace in that part
of the physical organism which is most closely allied to it.

Physiology and Psychology Interwoven

Look into the mirror the next time you are angry, happy, surprised,
tired or sorrowful and note the changes wrought by your emotions in your
facial muscles.

Constant repetition of the same kinds of thoughts or emotions finally
makes permanent changes in that part of the body which is
physiologically related to these mental processes.

The Evolution of the Jaw

The jaw is a good illustration of this alliance between the mind and
the body. Its muscles and bones are so closely allied to the pugnacity
instinct center in the brain that the slightest thought of combat causes
the jaw muscles to stiffen. Let the thought of any actual physical
encounter go through your mind and your jaw bone will automatically move
upward and outward.

After a lifetime of combat, whether by fists or words, the jaw sets
permanently a little more upward and outward--a little more like that of
the bulldog. It keeps to this combative mold, "because," says Mother
Nature, the great efficien