through six days of every week, and four weeks of every month,
until the work shall be finished. There is no good reason why the
mind will not do its best by regular exercise and usage. The mower
starts in the morning with a lame back and with aching joints; but
he keeps on mowing, and the glow rises, and the perspiration
starts, and he becomes interested in his labor, and, at length, he
finds himself at work with full efficiency. He was not in the mood
for mowing when he began, but mowing brought its own mood, and he
knew it would when he began. The mind is sometimes lame in the
morning. It refuses to go to work. Our wills seem entirely
insufficient to drive it to its tasks; but if it be driven to its
work and held to it persistently, and held thus every day, it will
ultimately be able to do its best every day. A man who works his
brains for a living, must work them just as regularly as the
omnibus-driver does his horses.

We sometimes go to church and hear a preacher who depends upon his
moods for the power to preach his best. He preaches well, and we
say that he is in the mood; and then again he preaches poorly, and
we say that he is not in the mood. A public singer who has the
power to move us at her will, comes into the concert-room, and
gives her music without spirit and without making any apparent
effort to please. We say that Madame or Mademoiselle is "not in
the mood to-night." A lecturer has his moods, which, apparently,
he slips on and off as he would a dressing-gown, charming the
people of one town by his eloquence and elegance, and disgusting
another by his dullness and carelessness. We are in the habit of
saying that certain men are very unequal in their performances,
which is only a way of saying that they are moody, and dependent
upon and controlled by moods. I think that, in any work or walk of