will, moreover, become continually harder for you to refrain from it,
until resentment, anger, and possibly even hatred and revenge become
characteristics of your nature, robbing it of its sunniness, its charm,
and its brightness for all with whom you come in contact. If, however,
the instant the impulse to resentment and anger arises, you check it
_then and there_, and throw the mind on to some other object of thought,
the power will gradually grow itself of doing this same thing more
readily, more easily, as succeeding like causes present themselves,
until by and by the time will come when there will be scarcely anything
that can irritate you, and nothing that can impel you to anger; until by
and by a matchless brightness and charm of nature and disposition will
become habitually yours, a brightness and charm you would scarcely think
possible to-day. And so we might take up case after case, characteristic
after characteristic, habit after habit. The habit of fault-finding and
its opposite are grown in identically the same way; the characteristic
of jealousy and its opposite; the characteristic of fear and its
opposite. In this same way we grow either love or hatred; in this way we
come to take a gloomy, pessimistic view of life, which objectifies
itself in a nature, a disposition of this type, or we grow that sunny,
hopeful, cheerful, buoyant nature that brings with it so much joy and
beauty and power for ourselves, as well as so much hope and inspiration
and joy for all the world.

There is nothing more true in connection with human life than that we
grow into the likeness of those things we contemplate. Literally and
scientifically and necessarily true is it that, "as a man thinketh in
his heart, so _is_ he." The "is" part is his character. His character is
the sum total of his habits. His habits have been formed by his
conscious acts; but every conscious act is, as we have found, preceded
by a thought. And so we have it--thought on the one hand, character,
life, destiny on the other. And simple it becomes when we bear in mind
that it is simply the thought of the present moment, and the next moment
when it is upon us, and then the next, and so on through all time.

One can in this way attain to whatever ideals he would attain to. Two
steps are necessary: first, as the days pass, to form one's ideals; and
second, to follow them continually whatever may arise, wherever they may
lead him. Always remember that the great