straightened out in the mind, as well as in reality. A little reflection
shows how indefinite must be the postponement of sleep under such
conditions.

No training is more important for the victim of compulsive tendencies
than the practice of trusting something to chance and the morrow, and
reconciling himself to the fact that at no time, in this world, will all
things be finally adjusted to his satisfaction.

The habit of dismissing, at will, disagreeable thoughts is a difficult but
not impossible acquisition. Arthur Benson in "The Thread of Gold" relates
the following anecdotes:

"When Gladstone was asked, 'But don't you find you lie awake at night,
thinking how you ought to act, and how you ought to have acted?' he
answered, 'No, I don't; where would be the use of that?'"

"Canon Beadon [who lived to be over one hundred] said to a friend that
the secret of long life in his own case was that he had never thought of
anything unpleasant after ten o'clock at night."

The insistent desire to sleep in a certain bed, with a certain degree of
light or darkness, heat or cold, air or absence of air, is detrimental.
This is in line with the desire to eat certain foods only, at a certain
table, and at a certain time. The man who loses his appetite if dinner
is half an hour late is unable again to sleep if once waked up. This
individual must say to himself, "Anyone can stand what he likes; it takes a
philosopher to stand what he does not like," and try at being a philosopher
instead of a sensitive plant.