erestimate the value of money or anything earthly is
really richer than the millionaire. There is a foolish story told by
COMBE in his Physiology of a man who had the supernatural gift of
never feeling any pain, be it from cold, hunger, heat, or accident.
The rain beat upon him in vain, the keenest north wind did not chill
him--he was fearless and free. But this immunity was coupled with an
inability to feel pleasure--his wine or ale was no more to his palate
than water, and he could not feel the kiss of his child; and so we are
told that he was soon desirous to become a creature subject to all
physical sensations as before. But it is, as I said, a foolish tale,
because it reduces all that is worth living for to being warm or
enjoying taste. His mind was not affected, but that goes for nothing
in such sheer sensuality. However, a man without losing his tastes or
appetites may train his Will to so master Emotion as to enjoy delight
with liberty, and also exclude what constitutes the majority of all
suffering with man.

It is a truth that there is very often an extremely easy, simple and
prosaic way to attain many an end, which has always been supposed to
require stupendous efforts. In an Italian fairy tale a prince besieges
a castle with an army--trumpets blowing, banners waving, and all the
pomp and circumstances of war--to obtain a beautiful heroine who is
meanwhile carried away by a rival who knew of a subterranean passage.
Hitherto, as I have already said, men have sought for self-control
only by means of heroic exertion, or by besieging the castle from
without; the simple system of Forethought and Self-Suggestion enables
one, as it were, to steal or slip away with ease by night and in
darkness that fairest of princesses, La Volonte, or the Will.

For he who wills to be equable and indifferent to the small and
involuntary annoyances, teasing memories, irritating trifles, which
constitute the chief trouble in life to most folk, can bring it about,
in small measure at first and in due time to greater perfection. And
by perseverance this rivulet may to a river run, the river fall into a
mighty lake, and this in time rush to the roaring sea; that is to say,
from bearing with indifference or quite evading attacks of _ennui_, we
may come to enduring great afflictions with little suffering.

Note that I do not say that we can come to bearing all the
bereavements, losses, and trials of life with _absolute_ indifference.
H