something pleasant of that disagreeable man." The temptation, too,
is very common to say to ourselves clearly, "I will try to think
something pleasant," and then leave "of that disagreeable man" a
subtle feeling in the background. The feeling in the background,
however unconscious we may be of it, is a strong
brain-impression,--all the stronger because we fail to recognize
it,--and the result of our "something pleasant" is an insidious
complacency at our own magnanimous disposition. Thus we get the
disagreeable brain-impression of another, backed up by our agreeable
brain-impression of ourselves, both mistaken. Unless we keep a sharp
look-out, we may here get into a snarl from which extrication is
slow work. Neither is it possible to counteract an unpleasant
brain-impression by something pleasant but false. We must call a
spade a spade, but not consider it a component part of the man who
handles it, nor yet associate the man with the spade, or the spade
with the man. When we drop it, so long as we drop it for what it is
worth, which is nothing in the case of the spade in question, we
have dropped it entirely. If we try to improve our brain-impression
by insisting that a spade is something better and pleasanter, we are
transforming a disagreeable impression to a mongrel state which
again brings anything but a happy result.

Simply to refuse all unpleasant brain-impressions, with no effort or
desire to recast them into something that they are not, seems to be
the only clear process to freedom. Not only so, but whatever there
might have been pleasant in what seemed entirely unpleasant can more
truly return as we drop the unpleasantness completely. It is a good
thing that most of us can approach the freedom of such a change in
imagination before we reach it in reality. So we can learn more
rapidly not to hamper ourselves or others by retaining disagreeable