SMALL causes are more potent factors in making or destroying power than are those influences that attract wide attention. When the most successful of prize fighters was sent to his final defeat it was not done by knock-out blows of sledge-hammer force, but by slight taps over the region of the heart. The constant repetition of this action soon weak­ened the organ. The striking of one drop of water after another on the same part of the scalp will, in less than an hour, set up a condition of semi-paralysis of that part of the brain beneath, resulting in frenzied insanity, of course largely aided by the element of fear.

The torment of gnats, and small vermin, is more destruc­tive of the comfort and peace of the individual than is the passing of heavy railroad trains. Small influences often have intense energy. People who are capable of worrying over little things, lose ten times the vitality that is stolen by larger causes.

LESSON SIX

"PETTY PHYSICAL HABITS"

Sudden Starts.—These are trifles in themselves, but they work havoc with the nerves, and what lowers the tone of the nerves will always lessen the magnetism.

Sudden Stops.—These may apply to the whole body or to any part of it. They are quite frequent as we will see a little later on in this work.

Trembling. This is not the shaking of fright, so much as the unsteadiness of hand which many persons allow to grow as a habit. It also includes the wagging of the foot, the twitching of the fingers, drumming, swaying of the legs in small motions, shivering and kindred petty movements. It is a surprise to know that most persons are always on the tremble. This fact you can see in your own case by practicing some of the dead-still exercises that are given in later pages of this book.

Type-writing.—It is a well known fact that more than ninety per cent of all who use the type-writer for any length of time, are restless and nervous. Under a system of smooth and easy motion this nervousness may be controlled. There are two kinds of touch for a type-writer; one that resembles the touch of a skilled pianist, and the other that is a succession of pounds with the fingers on the keys. The latter is the cause of loss of vitality. A smooth motion as is seen in the most skilled piano playing, does not tax the nervous vitality except as all excess of work may weary for the time. Many a young lady has suffered from nervous prostration because of too much work at the type-writer, and doctors are constantly having to deal with such cases. Any jerky movement is hurtful to the vitality.

Winking.—We have always attacked this fault first of all; and not until the pupil is able to suppress at all times the habit of moving the eyelids will there ever be a hope of ac­quiring magnetism. Here is the battle ground for a majority of the readers of these lessons. We are often told that the habit cannot be cured, and our reply is, then give up the study of magnetism. But the habit is being cured every year in thousands of cases, and consequently there is little virtue in the claim that it is a hopeless task to get rid of it in every instance. Attention is the sole method of overcoming it.

Gaping. This fault is due to a low state of vitality, and the person who is addicted to it is as far from magnetism as the sun is distant from the darkest corner of a cave. It is not only a clear evidence of weakness, such as follows indigestion in nine cases out of ten, or loss of sleep, or wasting of the energy as in excesses of any kind; but is also bad manners and bad deportment. When the claim is made that it cannot be cured, let the usual method of suppressing it be applied. This is to omit every alternate gape. The cure is complete. Even the loss of sleep and indigestion cannot compel the gape against that cure. Omitting every other gape soon reduces the number to less than one in an hour, as the omissions be­come less and less.

Sighing.—This is due to a low state of respiration. It denotes that the nervous system is out of order. Like gaping, it will disappear as the affirmative lessons of this course of training are put into practice. But as it is a habit that attends a low state of vitality in the lungs, it should receive attention apart from the training, for it will grow upon itself. By this is meant that the sighing habit, once started, will become auto­matic. It consists in holding a feeble inhalation longer than it should be held, and then allowing it to fall out instead of being exhaled in a normal way.

All petty faults should be watched by some person who is acting as critic for you. It is not easy to see yourself as another sees you. A critic should not be a student with you of personal magnetism, for you will then be expected to be his critic, and the result will be an exchange of flattery before you have proceeded very far. Mutual criticism never has worked well.

Short Breathing.—This is a habit distinct in itself, and grows if left to itself. It invites the open mouth breathing which is injurious to the health. All usual respirations should occur through the nostrils. Magnetic people breathe deeply and never pant.

Halting Speech.—Strange as the assertion may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that not one person in two hundred talks or speaks without halting. The usual expression when the halt comes is uh as a little observation will prove. In speak­ing formally at meetings, or even in business conversations, this habit is very prevalent. The cure of it is to speak smoothly by direction of the will. If this does not overcome the trouble, then the hand should move very slowly in a long,

sweeping motion, from a position across the body to a position far out to the side. This allows the hand more than four feet of passage, during which the words should be made to flow as smoothly as the arm. We have tried this for more than twenty years with pupils who were not fluent in the use of words, and we have never known a case of failure in one who was really ambitious.

Rapid Talk.—Vehement and earnest delivery in speak­ing, or in conversation, is one thing; but the habit of rapid talking is quite another. Vehemence generally helps to in­crease magnetism, if the body is tensed and free from the enemies to which we have referred; but rapidity of talk is one of the quickest methods of destroying vitality. Nervous prostration is the penalty of the man or woman who talks much and talks fast.

We know of many cases where persons are all tired out after an afternoon of gossipy talk. Recently our attention was called to a woman of great wealth who said that she would give a liberal reward for some treatment that would check her nervousness and loss of vitality. In looking into her habits, we found that she was an incessant and rapid talker. Not wishing to offend her, we outlined a course of conduct that required four weeks of silence. She was told that she must use pencil and paper for all her communications the wished to make; and to appease her curiosity we showed her a letter from Patti, the English prima donna, in which the latter spoke of her habit of always refraining from con­versation, and using paper and pencil, during the days preced­ing her engagement to sing at night. While Patti adopted (his plan for the purpose of saving her voice, she found that it saved her vitality as well. The four weeks of silence resulted in a complete cure of nervousness and low vitality. We do not recommend silence in ordinary cases; but we do suggest that those who talk much cannot become magnetic.

The orator of greatest powers is always a man of few words when not engaged in speaking. The same is true of the actor. Three hours in twenty-four need not lessen one's magnetism, but eight to fifteen hours in twenty-four will quickly use up all accumulated power. Conversation is hap­hazard talk, while speech and acting in a professional way, are creators of energy. The rapid talker uses many more words each minute than the magnetic speaker.

There are many reasons, mostly of policy, why a person should be addicted to few words. Total silence may seem like shyness; but a moderate degree of this quality is helpful to any man or woman. As a rule the less you talk, provided you talk some and talk sensibly, the more you are respected; and the person who is able to command respect has easy sway over others in the use of magnetism.

Face Motions. These are of various kinds. The most common is the action of the lips, and especially of the tongue. These are very small matters, but they have their influence for ill. One of the signs of approaching senility is the habit of constantly moving the tongue against the upper or lower lip, or the lips against the teeth. It is evidence of weakness, and magnetism is a power. Therefore the book of the face should not bear records that are read by people at a glance.

There are other petty physical habits that might be in­cluded in the list, but they are generally swept away by a successful contest with those we have named.

While life demands activity, there is a large distinction between regulated power, and force running away with itself. What the will directs, increases the power; and what is di­rected at hap-hazard is sure to weaken the power.

Perhaps it might be as well to say that when a quick movement is not directed by the will power acting in con­junction with the internal energy, it leads to loss; it is leakage, and it demagnetizes as well. Here are some examples:

1. A person sits in a room reading. A knock is heard on the door. The person who is reading gives a start of the hands perhaps. The vitality of the body is induced to pass out of the hands by this motion; and a sensation of weakness at once follows. It may be called fright; the proper term is that it is a start. Enough experiments have been made to satisfy the investigator that the weakness would not have followed had the quick motion been omitted. That is, the same start of the mind in the form of surprise would not have demagnetized the body. Starts and losses occur:

a. At the finger tips.

b. At the hands.

c. At the elbows.

d. At the shoulders.

e. At the head.

f. At the knees.

g. At the feet.

h. At the hips.

We have seen nervous persons give way in all these movements; and they are consequently very weak in magnetic vitality. We have seen the same persons overcome the bad habits, learn to control every movement, and soon acquire a marvelous degree of magnetism. We shall speak of some of these cases later on.

2. A person sits in a hall or church; some one drops a book; the former gives a general start of the whole body, sighs, leans back and suffers from the weakness engendered. In that one motion of the body a great volume of magnetic vitality leaped forth.

3. A person is walking upon the street; a friend comes up from behind and slaps him on the back; he jumps, catches his breath, turns pale, and is soon himself again, but weaker.

4. A woman thinks she sees a mouse in the room. With one involuntary recoil she shrinks backward. The magnet­ism so lost will not easily return in a week.

5. Something occurs to attract the attention. A jump is made from the chair to the feet. Vitality is lost.

6. A touch of the finger against something hot causes a sudden movement of the arm and upper body backward. Life is thrown off in such action.

We might cite thousands of cases, all of which depend upon the element of suddenness resulting from whatever may startle. Is it possible to conquer such tendencies? Yes, there is no person of a reasonable degree of intelligence who will not become supreme monarch of himself if he sets out to do so and has a system of training to guide him to success. Who is more nervous than a very nervous woman?

A Mrs. Brown was walking in her home one evening, having got into her night attire ready for bed. A lady rela­tive of about her age was in another room similarly attired; she followed after Mrs. Brown, making no sound whatever, came up to her and laid her hand upon her cousin's shoulder. Mrs. Brown gave a start that took her a half rod before she stopped. She collapsed with weakness. A year later the same thing occurred again, except that her husband was the offender. He came up behind her with noiseless steps and laid his hand upon hers, thinking that she knew he was there. She was more startled than before and became weaker.

Under the the advice of her physician, who was a student of our system of magnetism, Mrs. Brown took up the study of self-mastery. In three months she conquered her great fault. One night after twelve she arose from her bed in the dark and proceeded to get a drink of water in an adjoining room. Her husband was awakened, got up, followed her noiselessly and they met in the dark. Mrs. Brown writes as follows: "I did not know he was awake. I had no idea that he was coming into the room. His hand was outstretched as if feeling his way along in the dark. It was a cold hand and lay itself on my face. I was as much surprised as if I had been touched by a corpse fresh from the grave. A year be­fore I would have screamed, jumped and no doubt fallen into a dead faint. Since I began the study of magnetism I have learned to hold my nervous system as solid as a rock. I have schooled myself against everything." Her case is cited as one of a large number of persons who have acquired the much-coveted one of self-mastery.

The very same movements that demagnetize when made involuntarily, will develop magnetism if done under the control of the will or if accompanied by the internal energy.

LESSON SEVEN "PETTY HYGIENIC HABITS"

The petty habits just discussed were those that related to physical losses. There is another class that may be called hygienic, because they relate to the loss of health, and conse­quently to the weakening of the sources of magnetism.

Ice Water.—The use of ice water if taken slowly and allowed to warm in the mouth, a little at a time, will not do injury to the health; but the pouring of a half glass or more at one time into the stomach will quickly decrease the action of the heart, check respiration, contract the stomach so that it will force out some of its contents undigested, and lessen the magnetic heat of the nervous system. We recall several cases where speakers were deprived of their usual magnetic powers by drinking ice water just before making their ad­dresses. One of our students, a lawyer of national reputation, wrote the following assertion in a letter to a friend which was forwarded to us for criticism: "I have had success in my jury trials whenever I have held magnetic sway over the court and jury. I have learned that food and drink have something to do with magnetism. I am fond of ice cream when I am heated, and often partake just before going to court in the afternoon. I have noticed that my vitality is less and my magnetism is very much impaired for speaking after I have taken either ice water or ice cream, or any chilling food or fluid." The experience is a common one if care is taken to watch results.

Excess of Water.—This is injurious just before an at­tempt to use the magnetic powers. The best time to drink water is when the stomach is empty. Thirst should not invite great floods of fluid to the stomach. The more water one drinks in the course of twenty-four hours, if taken on an empty stomach and in small quantities at a time, the better will the machinery of the functions do their work. This method of drinking prevents the stomach from carrying more water than the blood can take up, and hence it is not hurtful,

But when there is food in the stomach the blood gives out its water and does not seem disposed to take up any, and the result is vital weakness. The same is true when too much water is taken at one time.

Sickish Diet. This does not mean sickening diet, but it is intended to include diet that gives mere pleasure and no strength. It costs a large fund of vitality each day to digest and throw out of the system the excess of food that is gen­erally taken; and when this excess is of the sickish kind, there can be no energy to be added to the storehouse of magnetism.

The plainer the food, the greater is the energy and the vitality of the body. It is, however, a hard doctrine to preach, for there is a universal craving for carbon in one form or another. Some like their carbon in the shape of candy, some like it in cake, dessert, puddings, pies, doughnuts, fats, butter, cream or alcohol. The last named is almost pure carbon. When a person likes alcohol, there is less liking for sugars and fats, for the result would be disease. One form of carbon is interchangeable into another. Sugars everywhere make alcohol. Starches everywhere make alcohol. Starches make sugar. Rich gravies, ice creams, butter, cakes, candies, and all the things that please the palate, are carbons, and their own element could have passed easily into alcohol.

The child is born with a craving for carbon, and the mother's milk is therefore much sweeter in sugar than the milk of the cow whose young is destined to eat hay and grain. The human craving increases as years are unfolded, and no parent can ignore the demand of nature. The absence of car­bon means the absence of magnetism; while the excess of it means the burning out of the fires. Nothing will burn that is not carbon. This craving allows the palate to pass on to the stomach almost anything that has carbon in it, and the result is the eating of much that is sickish in its nature, such as cakes, pastry, ice cream, new bread, gravies, patties, crisp fried and baked foods and many tilings that tax the energy of the nervous system in the effort to drive it out of the body. Stimulants. That is a stimulant which seeks to arouse a dead vitality. Tea, coffee, alcohol, and the many concoctions that are sold as hot winter drinks or cold summer beverages, are indulged in, with the result that the fires of magnetism are burned out. There is much discussion on both sides of the question, some persons claiming that stimulants are neces­sary. The author can speak of his own experience, and say that he has never used tobacco, tea, coffee, alcohol, or stimulant of any kind, since he was born. He can also speak with authority of many persons who have held magnetic sway for decades, and who have not used any of the things named.

On the other hand it is true that some of the men who have been before the public for many years, have been very magnetic and yet have used tea, or coffee or alcohol; but we do not know of a single instance where the use of tobacco helped a person. The tobacco smokers have been men whose in­fluence has waned as the habit grew on them; while the fore­most geniuses in public life who have been accounted most magnetic and most successful, have let tobacco alone alto­gether.

The rule that works out this problem is a deeper and broader one than any that belongs merely to the study of personal magnetism. We see it at work in all departments of life. It is the law of demand and supply. Nature will not supply what is not demanded. It appears in all physical activities; as where the blood may carry a full load of nutri­tion, which the tissue of the body will not take up, owing to lack of action. The more work or exercise there is in the muscular system, the more demand there is for nutrition, and the more food value will be given up by the blood to the tissue.

The same law is seen at work in the supply of natural beat. The warmer the room in which you live, the less heat will be generated in the body; the colder the outside con­ditions, the warmer will the surface of the body become. If you toast your feet, as the saying goes, over a grate, or at a stove, or supply artificial heat, nature will not develop as much natural heat within the body. In a person of normal health, the best way to get the feet warm la to bathe them in cold water, wipe them very dry, then bathe the upper part of the chest in cold water. The feet will be in a glow in a short time, and will remain warm. The quickest way to get confirmed cold feet is to form the habit of warming them at some stove or heater that furnishes artificial warmth.

This law runs through everything.

In the study of magnetism, no greater mistake can ever be made than to seek power through stimulants; for the best Stimulant can do nothing more than burn up in a more rapid manner what power is already on hand. Some speakers get so far down in vitality that they can do nothing until they take whiskey or other stimulant; but their fires are soon burned out, as has been proved in hundreds of well known cases. The magnetic speaker or actor, needs no fluid in the mouth from the time he begins until he is done. The few exceptions to this rule are in cases where careers of useful­ness are on the wane. Two generations and more ago, the three most magnetic men alive were Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate and Junius Booth. Not one ever used water or fluid of any kind during a public effort; there was no pitcher and glass on the stand to supply them with moisture. All three were great because of their excess of magnetic vitality, and all three have left names that will live for ages. Yet Webster and Booth, in later life only, were victims of the alcohol habit; but not one of them made any fame during that period. Booth had achieved all he was capable of during his years of ambition when he wholly ignored wines and liquors, as his son, Edwin, has so well stated. Success turned his head, and his career was erratic and downward. Yet he was not a drunkard.

Webster was not a drinking man during the years that he climbed to the pinnacle of success. He was afraid to touch any beverage that was not clear, cool water. Success and acceptance of social attentions dethroned him; and, in the latter years of his life, when his work was done, although he was only in the early sixties, he stood before the American public, "the most magnificent ruin ever looked upon," as one of his greatest friends has declared in a printed work.

Magnetism brings success. Success brings social atten­tions. Social attentions bring ruin.

Rufus Choate, the ruler of the twelve, was a man of the highest morality in personal habits. He had but one love, and that was triumph in his profession. He worked himself into a state of nervous collapse, and then became an excessive tea drinker. But his work had been accomplished long before he took up this habit. The tea broke down his health. He ignored all laws of diet and soon his stomach was a wreck. Death came to him while yet in the prime of active life. Many young men have been misled by the statement, so often made, that Choate's magnetism was the result of his tea-drinking habit; and we know of men who have sought the power by the use of this beverage, and have wondered why it failed them.

In our efforts to ascertain the facts, for facts are very important in this study, we at first were led to believe that Choate built up his magnetism by tea. Many experiments with scores of men, proved that no one else could do the same thing. We left no stone unturned to get at the true origin of the story that has so often been printed to the effect that he was an inveterate tea drinker all his life; and we found no proof of that; nor did his historian have any proof of it except the well known fact that he drank tea to excess in the latter part of his life; and only when his health had begun to fail did his friends and relatives know of the habit. His favorite beverage in the first forty years of his life was water.

No grander example of magnetism was ever seen than that displayed by John B. Gough, who was personally known to us for many years. After he had discarded his early habits, his power developed, and not before. For all his years of public triumph he used chiefly cold water as a bever­age. One man who had attended him on his tours for eight months, stated in the most positive terms: "I have not missed a meal during all this time, having been at the table with Mr.

Gough day in and day out, three times a day, and having par­taken of his lunches when the regular meals were not to be had. We were companions in eating. I personally know that no fluid passed his lips except cold water. He had used coffee and tea, as he told me, but only in small quantities. During the severe tax of a prolonged lecture tour he depended solely on cold water. I am told that, later in life, he used both coffee and tea in moderation, but not when his health was at its best. Plain food and cold water gave him his best powers." Gough once made the assertion that he could get along on a diet of bread and water and yet maintain his public work. He enjoyed testing his own ability to endure anything he set himself to do. His will was so strong that he could not realize what was meant by suffering from self-denial.

Excitants of Appetite. No greater mistake can be made than that of exciting or tempting the appetite with something that is abnormal. Nature furnishes excitants that are wholly within reason, but man seeks to improve on her efforts by perverted creations, such as spices, rich gravies, condi­ments, pastry, and almost anything that may be craved by abnormal tastes. A perfectly normal condition of the body will repudiate tobacco, alcohol, and all the things that work harm. But like attracts like, and the abnormal attracts the abnormal, while the normal will admit only the normal.

Much that grows in the lap of earth is poison. The products that are safe to take into the system are very few, compared with those that are death-dealing or poisonous. Therefore the fact that nature produces them is not proof that she produces them for the human family.

The test of value is found in an analysis of the body itself. Just fourteen chemical elements are required and their combinations are known to a certainty. Anything else is foreign and therefore an injury. Salt is not foreign, for it holds the chemical elements and their combinations ready for use. Analysis shows that the body can assimilate only a certain amount of salt, and that an excess is dangerous.

Here is a tempter of appetite that is useful. There are many kinds of vegetables and fruits that are likewise tempting and helpful, as well as herbs and some parts of the animal king­dom. All these are normal, for they hold nothing but the chemical elements of the body and their true combinations.

The same is not true of pepper, black dried currants, citrons, spices, and countless products that are false to the system, although inviting to the palate. These are all dis­cussed in our books on health, and it would be irrelevant to repeat the hundred or more pages here.

In hotels gravy is bought of gravy-makers, who produce it by the hundreds of barrels as a business. Analysis shows that it is not suited to the human body. This is but one of hundreds of things that people are compelled to eat who live away from their own firesides. The art of seasoning, flavor­ing and enriching worthless foods is now such an exact science that the expert chef, who does not want his employer to look into the kitchen, can take the carcase of a cow that died of tuberculosis, allow it to become badly tainted with decay, as was proved in a recent number of cases, then cook it so as to conceal the taste, dress in with gravies, and pass it before the banquet board as a delicious viand.

Most people eat too much. This being true the safer way is to eat only the foods that are known and recognized, and discard all others. We know that it is unpopular to teach plainness of diet, but we feel warranted in saying that vitality and magnetic energy are weakened by rich foods, and by the tempters of a false relish. The nearer we can come to plain eating, and not much of that, the greater will be the powers of life.

Indigestion. It is hardly necessary to speak of this fault, after all that has been said. But it is a fault, rather than a malady, just as a headache or toothache is a fault. What can be prevented or removed cannot be termed a malady. Indigestion is either blind or acute. The latter is felt after eating, and may abide for hours or days. Blind indigestion is not felt at the stomach, and leads persons who eat hurtful foods to exclaim that they agree with them, for nounpleasant results are felt at the stomach. They do not take into consideration the rolling of the intestines, the weakness at the heart, the yellow bile in the face and the bad breath; so they go on eating the things that keep the vitality low.

As all life, both magnetic and physical, comes from the nutrition that makes the body and its parts, the first great battle at this stage of the course, is to fight down and entirely remove all traces of indigestion, both acute and blind.

Pain. It is one of the axioms of magnetism that any­thing that saps the life out of the nervous system is sure to demagnetize the body, which means that no person can hope to acquire power when the avenues of escape are as great as the opportunities of acquisition. Pain is the surest and quickest of all enemies. It wearies mind, nerves and flesh. A boil will lower the tone of the system through its exhaust­ing influence, as also will a toothache, a headache, rheuma­tism, or any kind of physical torture.

How to get rid of these enemies is easily answered. A boil is not so great problem to a Ralstonite, for the cure and the prevention are both at hand. The same is true of head­aches and rheumatism. The toothache can be stopped in most cases by extraction or by treatment. But, whatever the cause, and whatever the remedy, the principle remains the same, there can be no magnetism where there is pain. It is for this reason that our works have all been used together. The system of health is a companion of the system of magnet­ism. It saves money for our students, for drugs and doc­tors cost much in a year, while a Ralstonite has very little expense.

Carbon Dioxide. This is the common foe of health, and of vitality. Nature gives warning when it is collected in wells, sewers, mines, or sunken places, for death is instan­taneous; no time is allowed for farewells, as in consumption and other disease. Carbon dioxide is the most deadly and the most common of all enemies of life that appear in small and apparently safe quantities. But each dose of the poison somewhere in the life of the body. It mucus from the membranes, and eats away the finer that are employed as gatherers of vital electricity all through the system.

Carbon dioxide is found in all conditions and almost everywhere. Its presence in the breath that passes from the lungs is easily detected, for it will extinguish burning carbon, and where carbon will not burn life cannot exist. It is also present in all newly made bread, cake, and most of the eat­ables that are fresh from the oven. It is the essential power in making dough rise. It is found in all soda water; and there is no drink so vicious as that which contains gas of Carbon. It is found in all charged waters of every kind. It is the sparkle. Champagne is based almost wholly upon carbon dioxide for its quality. Wine, beer, cider, soft drinks, and all ferment are filled with this poison.

It is liked because it has the bite, the snap, the sparkle, and much of the scrape that throats long for. One of its great offices in sickness is to cleanse down the stomach after the mucus of an outraged gastric juice has been collected there, clogging it to excess. The carbon dioxide cleanses it, just as a file will clean the teeth, or sandpaper will remove dirt from the face. Doctors galore recommend plain soda, or other form of carbon dioxide; and what wonder is it that nearly every person who has taken it, has had appendicitis? The latter malady is so much on the increase today that it may be called the forthcoming epidemic of civilization. It is due to the loss of the fine surface membrane of the intes­tines, which opens the way to the vermiform; and this is the first result of too much carbon dioxide.

Wet clothing. Electricity which is the basis of magnet­ism, is just the same in a human body as it is in a storage battery or along a wire. Dampness is a good conductor, and will lead it away from its centers. When the clothing is wet, the body drops many degrees in vitality, as most persons find out when it is too late. The same is true of damp or wet shoes. The same is true if you sit on the ground, or stand in damp places, or in any way connect the warm skin with the great fund of outer moisture by carelessness. In opposition to this view, we are asked how it la with people who live in foggy climes, or near the water. The reply is that such persons in time get used to the moisture in the air, and suit their clothing to it. The skin itself is made by nature to remain dry in wet air, provided the moisture is due only to vapor. But the excess of this proves dangerous. Hot vapor is still worse. And steam will take all power out of the body in a few minutes. It has been in recent times that the form of punishment for rebellious seamen was to put them in the steam box, for they soon wilted. A low comparative tem­perature will accomplish this, showing that it is not due to heat alone. Steaming a man in a box where the thermometer is at 106 soon overpowers him, while the same temperature would not decrease his vitality at all in the absence of the vapor.

Moisture and dampness are conductors of human power. Those who dwell in foggy climes, or near the water, do not come in contact with enough dampness to produce the effect of water, for some method of protection would at once be adopted. In talking with some people of an island, where health seemed to prevail among them all, we found that the skin in time takes on a glow and heat that repels the moisture as fast as it gathers; showing that nature provides for those who have to live in such places. Yet strangers would not be able to endure the conditions until they had become ac­climated.

Thin Shoes. We had intended to omit this enemy, be­cause there is such opposition everywhere to the wearing of heavy shoes. But the fact may as well be stated that thin shoes bring the vital nerves of the feet so close to the ground that dangers ensue from wearing them. One of the sever­est critics of George Washington spoke of his shoes and boots as being heavy enough for a giant. Bonaparte made it a point to buy the heaviest shoes for the feet of his soldiers, as he found it saved them the disorders that arise from marching too much in damp places. His soldiers were less stricken with bowel troubles than any armies ever known. In the Civil War of this country, more than one hundred thousand men died of bowel weakness. Sickness kills twice as many men as the shots of the enemy.

Standing on cold ground, or damp ground, or walking on wet or even damp ground, with thin shoes is one of the surest means of getting the body out of order, to say nothing of the loss of vitality that affects the generation of magnetism. This fact has been verified by a large number of experiments, and cannot be challenged.

LESSON EIGHT "PETTY MENTAL HABITS"

The mind has its habits that weaken the magnetism of a man or woman, and we will consider the most frequent causes of a low state of vitality in this respect.

Worry. This is a mental disease. It simply grows as will physical habits, such for instance as the custom of drum­ming with the fingers. In one of our earlier works we re­ferred to the automatic action of the brain which takes up any repeated physical action and reproduces it without the aid of the conscious brain. Were it not for this power, the pianist could never learn to play with the ten fingers all at one time. Conscious thought will not spread itself over so much variety of motion; hence the automatic brain will take up the task. Nearly all skilled work is done by this faculty.

We cited more than twenty years ago the fact that, if a person is told to drum at a fixed time each day for a num­ber of days, the automatic brain will take up the work and perform it without thought, and this accounts for the annoy­ance that so many men inflict on their friends, that of drum­ming all the time when they are not thinking.

Pursuing this claim, a party of four schoolmasters about three years ago, made the experiment with some young men during the sessions of school, in which they had these young men drum with their fingers on their desks at sixteen minutes of twelve in the forenoon. They kept this going for only one minute at a time, and repeated it every day from Monday till Friday, and again the next week. They did not tell the young men what they were doing it for. After three weeks of practice, the order was given to desist, and never again to drum. The next day, while their attention was wholly di­verted by some subject of interest, the young men without a single exception began the movements of the fingers, and some actually drummed with the vigor at first required, al­though all professed to be unconscious of it.

In the same way if you wake a person up at some un­usual hour, and repeat it a few mornings, the person will voluntarily awaken on the hour and minute.

Worry is likewise an automatic habit of the brain.

It occurs over little things and seems to ignore the big ones.

The cure for it is to make a record of each instance of worrying, and the cause, and outcome. When there have been ten such records, let the individual resolve to omit the odd numbered instances in the future. This method has effected a cure in every case where it has been given an honest trial. In seventy-four cases sixty-eight resolved to win and did win. The others lacked ambition. Those who won declared that the mere exercise of the will power alone could not accomplish the results; but that the effort to omit every other case of worry, and not to resist the intervening cases, proved so great a piece of philosophy that a cure could not be long delayed.

It might be said of all habits, good or bad, that they are automatic to a greater or less extent; but it is peculiar that the automatic life of the brain always tends toward weeds. The good comes only by effort. The bad slips in. Worry comes uninvited, and is always useless. If ill is anticipated, let some plan be adopted to meet its coming. Once we begin to worry, we will do so more and more until a lucid interval tells us that it is wearing out the pith of our life.

Surface Thinking. Magnetism is the power of purpose intensely willed and carried to execution by the faculties. It is of necessity an act of the mind, as well as of the heart and nervous forces. Its enactment is planned in the brain and the method of accomplishing the end sought is built in the thinking powers. A fool, a silly person, an unbalanced mind, can no more succeed through magnetism than can a legless man walk.

For the purpose of illustrating the process whereby thought impels magnetic forces, we will quote from a well known work on the mind. The ideas are given in popular terms for the sake of being better understood.

The brain is a throbbing engine that gives back its thoughts from the realms wherein they are created or stored. It may be said to have several layers. The outer layer is the surface, and its activities are superficial. It is that part of the mind that is employed in light reading and in all kinds of play. It has no association with the magnetic division of the brain, which is located one and more layers deeper.

The surface brain is a natural condition that allows the individual to enjoy much thinking without carrying the bur­den of thought. The deepest game of sport, or of cards, never taxes any other part of the mind than the surface. Checkers are played wholly with the cunning of the surface brain. Chess sometimes involves the deeper tissue. But the supposedly deep game of whist is wholly superficial with all its required memory and attention.

The magnetic brain is deeper, and it becomes mightier as the depth is sounded. Cunning and intricacy, memory and attention, are all excellent qualities, but the Chinese imitators who rarely ever pass beneath the surface of the brain, have a much more tentative memory than their more civilized Caucasian brothers. The negro and the fox are full of Strategy, but have only a surface brain.

The mental desserts are: Light reading, novel reading, newspaper reading, magazine reading, games, play, puzzles, cards, social intercourse, travel and many kinds of activities that do not come under the class of work or study.

The purpose of any dessert is to balance and give variety to the serious, the useful and the heavier duties of life, no matter what department is included. It is true of the stom­ach. It is true of the mind. A rich man can afford more desserts than the poor man, but the latter is blessed with his limited purse, for desserts weaken when they are out of balance.

It is arranged by nature that the mental desserts shall affect only the surface brain, as we call it in popular lan­guage. The purpose is to call the blood and activity from the deeper portions of the mind, and such relief is often a blessing. But there are useful ways of establishing the bal­ance between the two brains.

A person whose duties are mostly muscular, is relieved by mental efforts of any kind; for muscular activities are con­trolled in the cerebellum, or non-thinking brain.

A person whose duties are mostly mental is relieved by muscular toil or exercise.

In other words the sedentary person may seek variety in any use of the muscles,, and the toiler may seek change in any use of the mind.

For the toiler to seek his relief in mental desserts, is to throw away the greatest opportunities he has of becoming a successful power in the world. He needs relief, but he will get it even in the hardest study. Why, then, should he use only the surface of his mind? History is full of instances where men who have worked with their muscles have also carried on the heaviest studies in the intervals, with the result that, when their faculties were ripe, they leaped into power almost at a hound. But there is not a single instance in all history where the toiler has become useful in life, when he has turned from his labor to seek relief in mental desserts. This one fact speaks volumes.

It should find deep root in the lives of those who wish to rise from their humble stations. Let it be remembered that the greatest men and women of the past have come from the humblest ranks; but they have obeyed this instinctive law of life.

Personal magnetism is not an empty acquisition. It is based on something real; not on sham and pretence. The more you acquire in the mind, the more accomplishments you cultivate in the faculties, the greater will you become when these qualities are harnessed to the power of controlling your fellow beings.

By another law of balance, the realm of mental desserts is also the only realm of worry, apprehension, fear of the future, and gloomy forebodings of all kinds.

The woman who deems life made for mental desserts is the most wretched of all creatures; despite the effort she makes to establish the contrary belief in her friends. Her smiles are forced. She is burying under a mountain all those better gifts that God has placed in her charge, and she repays the trust by reading novels, playing cards, devoting her time to play or amusement and much worrying, with an ever grow­ing dislike for the sweeter and more serious things of life. It is surface thinking and the use of only the outer layer of the mind. Like the stomach that feeds on nothing but des­serts, there comes a weakening and breakdown, a nervous unrest, or a tendency to hysterics, or other cloud upon her existence. She sees all the weaknesses of others, even in her own family, and they make her unhappy, all the while longing for some excitement and some form of stimulant in her pleasures, until at last her soul passes over to the morbid chasm.

Mental desserts have their time and place, but nobody can afford to make them the chief meal of the brain.

The millions of young men, and the countless thousands of grown men in this country who hate any form of mental action except desserts, are playing into the hands of those who pursue the laws of nature for more useful ends.

That vitality which is magnetic and which gives to each person the power to rule self and others, springs from the deeper uses of the mind than the surface. It is for this reason that few persons have any real mastery over them­selves. In fact it is so hard to put down temptation that few care to essay it. The cravings for each and every kind of harm are so supreme in these weak lives, that vices are always on the increase.

Surface thinking is a petty matter. The sensations of the press, the love for gossip, the criticism of neighbors, the reading of magazines, the perusal of novels, the study of puzzles, the playing of cards and other games, the idled hours in social affairs, the worship of fine attires, the fas­cination for races, for gambling and for games of chance: all these call into action the surface brain and weary the deeper mind by their effervescence. Most of them are harm­less as far as actual injury is concerned; but they deprive the better faculties of their part in the plan of existence.

There can be no magnetism where there is only mental desserts to base it upon.

The athletes that win the great contests are not fed on pie or cake or pastry or ice cream or soda water or candy. Such a diet would at once place them beyond all hope of even entering the tournament. In fact, the rule is the oppo­site, for all desserts are denied them during the long period of their preparation.

We have often been asked to outline for the ambitious young man and woman, and the adult as well,—for no person is too old to study, and student life makes all young again— some studies that are most useful and that arouse the powers of the deeper brain; and we append our usual list at this place:

As thought lives in words, and as the great people of the world have been masters of words, we advise every am­bitious person to learn the synonyms of English, the shades of meaning in English words, and their representative words in some other language, notably Latin. This is an interest­ing line of study, and soon becomes quite fascinating.

The greater the number of words that a person is able to use intelligently and with shades of meaning, the greater power his mind has; for words come from the vital center of the brain from which radiate nearly all other faculties. In looking back over the works of the greatest people who have ever lived, we find that real greatness is accompanied by an in­creasing proportion of words used by them. Devote as much time as you can to the mastery of words; it pays golden rewards.

We also advise the mastery of grammar, the mastery of rhetoric, the mastery of algebra, the mastery of spelling and the mastery of the leading authority in each disputed word as to its pronunciation.

Lastly we recommend that some work of scientific im­portance, not technical, be read at the rate of one or more pages each day. The attempt to get scientific information out of the papers and magazines is useless, as the study is necessarily disconnected even if the authors are the best. A person already learned in the branch might get value from some side light thus thrown on it, but it is not suited to the unfolding of the mind.

This advice will not be popular, for when once the sur­face brain has assumed control of a life, it disdains all sug­gestions for improvement. Yet, somewhere, deep down in that life, there come yearnings for greater usefulness, and a prayer for a higher plane of living.