her some idea of the common sense of not worrying, taught her
quieting exercises which she practised every day; and when one day, in
the midst of one of her lessons, Margaret seemed very quiet and
restful, the teacher asked:--

"Margaret, could you worry about your Latin now if you tried?"

"Yes," said Margaret, "I am afraid I could."

Nothing more was said, but she went on with her lessons, and several
days after, during the same restful quiet time, the teacher ventured
again.

"Now, Margaret, could you worry about your Latin if you tried?"

Then came the emphatic answer, _"No, I could not."_

After that the little girl would say:

"With the part of me that worries, I do not care whether I get my Latin
or not; with the part of me that does not worry, I want to get my Latin
very much; therefore I will stay in the part of me that does not worry,
and get my Latin."

A childish argument, and one that may be entirely incomprehensible to
many minds, but to those who do comprehend, it represents a very real
and practical help.

It is, in most cases, a grave mistake to, reason with a worry. We must
first drop the worry, and then do our reasoning. If to drop the worry
seems impossible, we can separate ourselves from it enough to prevent
it from interfering with our reasoning, very much as if it were
neuralgia. There is never any real reason for a worry, because, as we
all know, worry never helps us to gain, and often is the cause of our
losing, the things which we so much desire.

Sometimes we worry because we are tired, and in that case, if we can
recognize the real cause, we should use our wills to withdraw our
attention from the object of worry, and to get all possible rest at
once, in the confident belief that rest will make things clear, or at
least more clear than they were when we were tired. It would be hard to
compute the harm that has been done by kindly disposed people in
reasoning with the worry of a friend, when the anxiety is increased by
fatigue or illness. To reason with one who is tired or ill and worried,
only increases the mental strain, and every effort that is made to
reason him out of it aggravates the strain; until, finally, the poor
brain, through kindly meant effort, has been worked into an extreme
state of irritation or even inflammation. For the same reason, a
worried mind should not be laughed at. Worries that are aroused by
fatigue or illness are often most absurd, but they are not absu