As a Matter of Course | Page 4

materially interfere with the best possibilities of usefulness and
pleasure in everyday life.

CONTENTS.

I. INTRODUCTION II. PHYSICAL CARE III. AMUSEMENTS IV.
BRAIN IMPRESSIONS V. THE TRIVIALITY OF TRIVIALITIES VI.
MOODS VII. TOLERANCE VIII. SYMPATHY IX. OTHERS X.
ONE'S SELF XI. CHILDREN XII. ILLNESS XIII. SENTIMENT
VERSUS SENTIMENTALITY XIV. PROBLEMS XV. SUMMARY

AS A MATTER OF COURSE.
I.
INTRODUCTION.
IN climbing a mountain, if we know the path and take it as a matter of
course, we are free to enjoy the beauties of the surrounding country. If
in the same journey we set a stone in the way and recognize our ability
to step over it, we do so at once, and save ourselves from tripping or
from useless waste of time and thought as to how we might best go
round it.
There are stones upon stones in every-day life which might be stepped
over with perfect ease, but which, curiously enough, are considered
from all sides and then tripped upon; and the result is a stubbing of the
moral toes, and a consequent irritation of the nervous system. Or, if
semi-occasionally one of these stones is stepped over as a matter of
course, the danger is that attention is immediately called to the action
by admiring friends, or by the person himself, in a way so to tickle the
nervous system that it amounts to an irritation, and causes him to trip
over the next stone, and finally tumble on his nose. Then, if he is not
wise enough to pick himself up and walk on with the renewed ability of
stepping over future stones, he remains on his nose far longer than is
either necessary or advisable.
These various stones in the way do more towards keeping a nervous
system in a chronic state of irritation than is imagined. They are what
might perhaps be called the outside elements of life. These once
normally faced, cease to exist as impediments, dwindle away, and
finally disappear altogether.
Thus we are enabled to get nearer the kernel, and have a growing
realization of life itself.

Civilization may give a man new freedom, a freedom beyond any
power of description or conception, except to those who achieve it, or it
may so bind him body and soul that in moments when he recognizes
his nervous contractions he would willingly sell his hope of
immortality to be a wild horse or tiger for the rest of his days.
These stones in the way are the result of a perversion of civilization,
and the cause of much contraction and unnecessary suffering.
There is the physical stone. If the health of the body were attended to as
a matter of course, as its cleanliness is attended to by those of us who
are more civilized, how much easier life might be! Indeed, the various
trippings on, and endeavors to encircle, this physical stone, raise many
phantom stones, and the severity of the fall is just as great when one
trips over a stone that is not there. Don Quixote was quite exhausted
when he had been fighting the windmills. One recognizes over and over
the truth spoken by the little girl who, when reprimanded by her father
for being fretful, said: "It isn't me, papa, it's that banana."
There is also the over-serious stone; and this, so far from being stepped
over or any effort made to encircle it, is often raised to the undue
dignity of a throne, and not rested upon. It seems to produce an
inability for any sort of recreation, and a scorn of the necessity or the
pleasure of being amused. Every one will admit that recreation is one
swing of life's pendulum; and in proportion to the swing in that
direction will be the strength of the swing in the other direction, and
vice versa.
One kind of stone which is not the least among the self-made
impediments is the microscopic faculty which most of us possess for
increasing small, inoffensive pebbles to good-sized rocks. A quiet
insistence on seeing these pebbles in their natural size would reduce
them shortly to a pile of sand which might be easily smoothed to a level,
and add to the comfort of the path. Moods are stones which not only
may be stepped over, but kicked right out of the path with a good bold
stroke. And the stones of intolerance may be replaced by an open
sympathy,--an ability to take the other's point of view,--which will
bring flowers in the path instead.
In dealing with ourselves and others there are stones innumerable, if
one chooses to regard them, and a steadily decreasing number as one
steps over and ignores. In our relations with illness and poverty,

so-called, the ghosts of stones multiply themselves as the illness or the
poverty