commends Mrs. Annie
Besant's book, _Thought Power: Its Control and Culture_. He says that
it treats the subject with scientific clearness, and gives a practical
method of training the mind, I endorse the latter part of the
statement.

So much for the more or less technical processes of stirring the mind
from its sloth and making it exactly obedient to the aspirations of
the soul. And here I close. Numerous correspondents have asked me to
outline a course of reading for them. In other words, they have asked
me to particularize for them the aspirations of their souls. My
subject, however, was not self-development My subject was mental
efficiency as a means to self-development. Of course, one can only
acquire mental efficiency in the actual effort of self-development.
But I was concerned, not with the choice of route; rather with the
manner of following the route. You say to me that I am busying myself
with the best method of walking, and refusing to discuss where to go.
Precisely. One man cannot tell another man where the other man wants
to go.

If he can't himself decide on a goal he may as well curl up and
expire, for the root of the matter is not in him. I will content
myself with pointing out that the entire universe is open for
inspection. Too many people fancy that self-development means
literature. They associate the higher life with an intimate knowledge
of the life of Charlotte Bronte, or the order of the plays of
Shakespeare. The higher life may just as well be butterflies, or
funeral customs, or county boundaries, or street names, or mosses, or
stars, or slugs, as Charlotte Bronte or Shakespeare. Choose what
interests you. Lots of finely-organized, mentally-efficient persons
can't read Shakespeare at any price, and if you asked them who was the
author of _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_ they might proudly answer
Emily Bronte, if they didn't say they never heard of it. An accurate
knowledge of _any_ subject, coupled with a carefully nurtured sense of
the relativity of that subject to other subjects, implies an enormous
self-development. With this hint I conclude.

II

EXPRESSING ONE'S INDIVIDUALITY

A most curious and useful thing to realize is that one never knows the
impression one is creating on other people. One may often guess pretty
accurately whether it is good, bad, or indifferent--some people render
it unnecessary for one to guess, they practically inform one--but that
is not what I mean. I