From the simple fact that even a man of plain common-sense and strong
will may be driven to sleeplessness, or well nigh to madness, by the
haunting presence of some wretched trifle, some mere jingle or rhyme,
or idle memory, we may infer that we have here a great power which
_must_ in some way be capable of being led to great or useful results
by some very easy process. I once wrote a sketch, never completed, in
which I depicted a man of culture who, having lost an old manuscript
book which he had regarded in a light, semi-incredulous manner as a
_fetish_, or amulet, on which his luck depended, began to be seriously
concerned, and awaking to the fact, deliberately cultivated his alarm
as a psychological study, till he found himself, even with his eyes
wide open as an observer in terrible fear, or a semi-monomaniac. The
recovery of his lost charm at once relieved him. This was a diversion
of Attention for a deliberate purpose, which might have been varied
_ad infinitum_ to procure very useful results. But I have myself known
a man in the United States, who, having lost--he being an actor or
performer--a certain article of theatrical properties on which he
believed "luck" depended, lost all heart and hope, and fell into a
decline, from which he never recovered. In this, as in all such cases,
it was not so much conviction or reason which influenced the sufferer
as the mere effect of Attention often awakened till it had become what
is known as a fixed idea.

A deliberate reflection on what I have here advanced can hardly fail
to make it clear to any reader that if he really desires to take an
interest in any subject, it is possible to do so, because Nature has
placed in every mind vast capacity for attention or fixing ideas, and
where the Attention is fixed, Interest, by equally easy process, may
always be induced to follow. And note that these preliminary