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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
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