surely clog, rather than accelerate, our efforts.

* * * * *

The natural tendency of the healthy mind is to accustom itself to new
sensations, as the ring on the finger, or the spectacles on the nose. The
obsessive individual resists this tendency; he starts with the fixed idea
that he cannot stand the annoyance, his resentment increases, and his
sensations become more, instead of less, acute. His reaction to criticism,
slight, and ridicule is similar; he is prepared to start, blush, and show
anger on moderate provocation, and can often reproduce both the sensation
and its accompanying physical signs by merely recalling the circumstance.

The passive as well as the active obsessions can be overcome by cultivating
the commonplace, or average normal, attitude, and resolving gradually to
accustom one's self to the disagreeable. This change of attitude can be
made in adult life as well as in youth. "You cannot teach an old dog new
tricks," we are told. The reason is not that the old dog cannot learn them,
but that he does not want to. I met in Germany a British matron who was
obsessed with the belief that she could not learn the language. At the
end of four years' sojourn she entered a store and asked the price of an
article.

"Four marks," was the answer.

"How much in English money?" she inquired.

"Why, madam, a mark is the same as a shilling."

"I don't know anything about that; how much is it in English?"