OUR NEXT STEP brings us to the consideration of perfect calmness of body and mind while charged with tremendous energy; the power to think great thoughts and not to let them run wild with the emotions; the power to hold great determination and not lose any of its force in wasted action. Can you imagine a perfect machine that has been built for the execution of the most delicate and at the same time the most useful movements; a machine that does what it was made for, and nothing else; a machine that never loses any motion in the midst of those that display its efficiency? Every detail of its work has a purpose behind it. If it were permitted to perform other details, some of its power and much of its usefulness would be wasted.

In like manner it must be remembered:

1. That there must be the energy of a strong life within.

2. That there must be no action without except what is needed for the expression of the life within.

The practice introduced in this chapter is of a mixed character. We prefer, wherever it is possible, to use the necessary events of the day as means of progress, rather than dry exercises. The child that grows up to manhood or womanhood, and becomes magnetic without practice, is in fact always practicing. The nervousness, the activity and vigor of youth are all evidences of extra vitality with which young people are supplied; the excess being intended by nature to carry the child through the perils of early life, for statistics as well as circumstances conspire to its cutting off. Out of that turmoil of activity a few conic to the settled repose of stupidity which has but little life within; and a rare few attain magnetism by natural processes.

But how?

Who told them that a live soul, a throbbing, pulsating life within a body, when held compressed by the other forces, become intensely magnetic; that the use of the inner power through the controlled channels of expression increased that magnetism; and that waste action or lost motions sap the fountain and spend its wealth?

No one ever proclaimed these things to them, perhaps; but come genius whose presence they could not discern whispered the secret to them; and they, all unconscious of the fact, became experts in the art of self-composure. Or it may be that a keen judgment told them that persons who cannot sit still or stand still are less capable of impressing themselves upon their fellow-beings than those who retain all their vigor while commanding its use. At any rate the person who is naturally magnetic possesses the same traits as those who have acquired the power. The possession has come through the same processes.

What may be practice to you is habit in another. There are not two royal roads to the same palace in the study of magnetism. It is by conserving the energies of life and increasing them that the results are attained. These things are done by habit in one case; and by practice in another; but they are identically the same. While the work of the present chapter may be called practice, we are endeavoring to set it forth in two classes:

1. In the habits of persons who are naturally endowed with personal magnetism.

2. In dry practice.

If you adopt the former without the latter, it will suffice provided you are able to make the easier and more natural methods count as effectively as the dry practice. The latter has the merit of being speedier and more certain.

Newly acquired habits soon become second nature.

What you decide to do regularly in the daily routine of action, will grow upon you and soon attend to its own performance. If it were not for this quality of the human mind, we would all be helpless. Parts of the body may be trained to take up these secondary habits and carry them on in many diverse ways at the sametime; as is specially noted in the case of the musician.

No person can play the piano until the fingers have acquired the habitof traveling over the keys with accuracy of touch; a thing that is impossible for many weeks or months. By and by the ten digits of the two hands are able to perform ten different duties, all exact, and at the rate of hundreds per minute. Then comes the time when the habit of playing is so well established that the eyes need not see the key-board; the mind can measure it through the hands. The church organist operates the many keys that are made for the hands, as well as anumber of pedals for the feet.

One of the charms of second nature is in the fact that a new habit does not bother the mind when it is correct in its operations; but does bother the mind when in error. Here is a person who has spoken bad grammar for years in ignorance; he learns the rules of grammar, soon applies them, does so with accuracy for weeks until he finds himself speaking correctly as a second nature, and thereafter he has no knowledge that he is following the rules. Being adopted into his life they demand no attention from the mind. But here comes the wonder: When he speaks correctly he is not aware of the fact; yet let him make an error and his mind will recognize it at once.

In stronger force the same law holds true when personal habits areinvolved. The faulty attitude is overcome by practice and disappears; if there is negligence the breach is noticed at the time; but the continual doing of what is one's regular way is never recognized by the doer of it. It is the error, the exception, thebreak in the habit that arrests attention. When an attempt to establish dead-stillness as a second nature has been persisted in for a few weeks, the whole nervous system will take it up and adopt it as a habit. Then, when some breach of this occurs, the mind will have knowledge of it.

Dead-stillness requires perfect calmness of the mind and emotions.

When the mind is excited the body as its agent loses control of itself to some extent. The emotions or feelings go much further, for they unbalance both mind and body.

We know of nothing more important in this or in any other study than that the mind should always be calm. Even if the muscles must give way to their proneness to move constantly or the nerves twitch; the brain which is the engineer should never under any impression show excitement; nor should the emotions control the mind or body.

A calm mind is a successful mind, if the calmness is one of strength, not exhaustion. Many little laws come into play at this juncture; not broad enough to be called principles. We will state them:

1. The muscles of the body, by constant involuntary motions, may waste the vitality without involving the action of the mind.

2. The nerves of the body, by constant twitching, may waste the vitality without involving the action of the mind.

3. Dead-stillness, as practiced in this book, will overcome both faults and lead to the accumulation of magnetism.

4. The excitement of the mind may or may not involve the action of the muscles or of the nerves. It generally does affect them seriously.

5. The excitement of the emotions may or may not involve the mind, muscles and nerves. It is almost certain to affect the mind, unless the person is of strong magnetic self-control.

6. It is a test of power to be able to separate the thoughts from the face.

7. It is the best test of power to be able to separate the emotions from the mind; thence from the face and general body.

8. The practice of dead-stillness as given in this book will accomplish such results.

Napoleon the great could make his face marble if he chose He never allowed his nearest friend or closest counselor to know what was passing in his mind, or what effect any news, good or bad, really produced on him. He retained that placidity of countenance that told nothing. Apart from his occasional period of anger, he was a man of dead-stillness; an engine of tremendous power held in control. His magnetism was most powerful. By it he held men of treachery under sway of his will; he inspired his soldiers to deeds of frenzied heroism; and overawed his opponents in diplomacy.

Bismarck, Gladstone and all great men have separated their emotions from their minds, and both from muscles and nerves; so that passion never intrudes itself unbidden.

9 Mental and emotional excitement may be concealed by controlling the muscles and nerves, even at times without possessing much magnetism; but it requires the highest degree of this power to prevent the voice from betraying the excitement. It is dead-stillness in full earnestness. Practice dead-stillness all day long. Use all parts of the body thatare required in the performance of any duty; but do not allow a single action otherwise to escape. It will take no time. You will be all the stronger for it. If need be have some friend watch you to give advice as to any escaping motions. Make everything count. The parent can always control the child, and without unkindness, by the perfect power of absolute repose of all parts of the body not needed in use; the steady glance, the placid faceand the calm control of mind and body. No child, howeverfractious, can resist this influence if backed by the magnetism that such calmness will generate. The school teacher is able to control the most unruly of scholars by the conditions just stated. We could devote hundreds of pages to reports from teachers confirming the irresistible force of dead-stillness when alive with magnetic energy.

The same results are everywhere reported. There is no reason why you should not be master of those with whom you come in contact.

However, all such control requires tact. It is the one key of success in life. Tact unlocks all the doors in the hearts and pockets of your fellow-beings. It wins friendships without ostentation; and secures wealth without wrong.

It makes but little difference how much magnetism is born in us or later cultivated, if we have no tact we cannot suitably use it. There are today living in obscurity great men and women, whoneed only this one power to develop them. They have aspirations and longings for a proud career, a noble future, but haveno tact. Could we go among them and bring them out by teaching them how to come in contact with the world, we should findShakespeares, and Miltons, Whitefields and Spurgeons, Websters and Clays, Garricks and Goughs, when now we see butthe yearning for greatness stamped upon the face.

The cultivation of tact and the cultivation of personal magnetism go hand in hand.