"Don't forget your promise about that girl, dear. I've an hour before lunch, and could see her then. I was out of humor last night. I'm very penitent this morning. Please forgive me. Maybe I can do something for her. JOSEPHINE."
Norman read with amused eyes. "Well!" soliloquized he, "I'm not likely to forget that poor little creature again. What a fuss about nothing!"
IV
Many men, possibly a majority, have sufficient equipment for at least a fair measure of success. Yet all but a few are downright failures, passing their lives in helpless dependence, glad to sell themselves for a small part of the value they create. For this there are two main reasons. The first is, as Norman said, that only a few men have the self-restraint to resist the temptings of a small pleasure to-day in order to gain a larger to-morrow or next day. The second is that few men possess the power of continuous concentration. Most of us cannot concentrate at all; any slight distraction suffices to disrupt and destroy the whole train of thought. A good many can concentrate for a few hours, for a week or so, for two or three months. But there comes a small achievement and it satisfies, or a small discouragement and it disheartens. Only to the rare few is given the power to concentrate steadily, year in and year out, through good and evil event or report.
As Norman stepped into his auto to go to the office—he had ridden a horse in the park before breakfast until its hide was streaked with lather—the instant he entered his auto, he discharged his mind of everything but the business before him down town—or, rather, business filled his mind so completely that everything else poured out and away. A really fine mind—a perfect or approximately perfect instrument to the purposes of its possessor—is a marvelous spectacle of order. It is like a vast public library constantly used by large numbers. There are alcoves, rows on rows, shelves on shelves, with the exactest system everywhere prevailing, with the attendants moving about in list-bottomed shoes, fulfilling without the least hesitation or mistake the multitude of directions from the central desk. It is like an admirably drilled army, where there is the nice balance of freedom and discipline that gives mobility without confusion; the divisions, down to files and even units, can be disposed along the line of battle wherever needed, or can be marshaled in reserve for use at the proper moment. Such a mind may be used for good purpose or bad—or for mixed purposes, after the usual
Prev.
Back
Top