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The Human Machine by Arnold Bennett
page 37 of 72 (51%)
ashamed to be wise. You may smile superiorly as you read this. Yet you
know very well that more than once you _have_ resolved to use a gentle
and persuasive tone on all occasions, and that the sole reason why you
had that fearful shindy yesterday with your cousin's sister-in-law was
that you had long since failed to keep your resolve. But you were of my
mind once, and more than once.

What you have to do is to teach the new habit to your brain by daily
concentration on it; by forcing your brain to think of nothing else for
half an hour of a morning. After a time the brain will begin to remember
automatically. For, of course, the explanation of your previous
failures is that your brain, undisciplined, merely forgot at the
critical moment. The tone was out of your mouth before your brain had
waked up. It is necessary to watch, as though you were a sentinel, not
only against the wrong tone, but against the other symptoms of the
attitude of blame. Such as the frown. It is necessary to regard yourself
constantly, and in minute detail. You lie in bed for half an hour and
enthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the right
tone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance of
necktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench your
teeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards your
environment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such a
symptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either!
If you will frown at a necktie, if you will use language to a necktie
which no gentleman should use to a necktie, what will you be capable of
to a responsible being?... Yes, it is very difficult. But it can be
done.



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