Mental Efficiency

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Mental Efficiency, by Arnold Bennett

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Title: Mental Efficiency And Other Hints to Men and Women
Author: Arnold Bennett
Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23347]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+
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MENTAL EFFICIENCY

+--------------------------------------------+ | BY ARNOLD BENNETT | | | | Novels | | | | THE OLD WIVES' TALE | | HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND | | THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA | | BURIED ALIVE | | A GREAT MAN | | LEONORA | | WHOM GOD HATH JOINED | | A MAN FROM THE NORTH | | ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS | | THE GLIMPSE | | | | Pocket Philosophies | | | | HOW TO LIVE ON 24 HOURS A DAY | | THE HUMAN MACHINE | | LITERARY TASTE | | MENTAL EFFICIENCY | | | | Miscellaneous | | | | CUPID AND COMMONSENSE: A Play | | WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS: A Play | | THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR | | THE FEAST OF ST. FRIEND | | | | GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY | | NEW YORK | +--------------------------------------------+

MENTAL EFFICIENCY
AND OTHER HINTS TO MEN AND WOMEN
BY
ARNOLD BENNETT
Author of "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day" "The Old Wives' Tale," etc.
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1911 By George H. Doran Company

CONTENTS
Page
I. Mental Efficiency 7 The Appeal 7 The Replies 13 The Cure 19 Mental Calisthenics 24
II. Expressing One's Individuality 32
III. Breaking with the Past 39
IV. Settling Down in Life 45
V. Marriage 53 The Duty of It 53 The Adventure of It 59 The Two Ways of It 65
VI. Books 72 The Physical Side 72 The Philosophy of Book Buying 78
VII. Success 84 Candid Remarks 84 The Successful and the Unsuccessful 91 The Inwardness of Success 97
VIII. The Petty Artificialities 104
IX. The Secret of Content 112

I
MENTAL EFFICIENCY
THE APPEAL
If there is any virtue in advertisements--and a journalist should be the last person to say that there is not--the American nation is rapidly reaching a state of physical efficiency of which the world has probably not seen the like since Sparta. In all the American newspapers and all the American monthlies are innumerable illustrated announcements of "physical-culture specialists," who guarantee to make all the organs of the body perform their duties with the mighty precision of a 60 h.p. motor-car that never breaks down. I saw a book the other day written by one of these specialists, to show how perfect health could be attained by devoting a quarter of an hour a day to certain exercises. The advertisements multiply and increase in size. They cost a great deal of money. Therefore they must bring in a great deal of business. Therefore vast numbers of people must be worried about the non-efficiency of their bodies, and on the way to achieve efficiency. In our more modest British fashion, we have the same phenomenon in England. And it is growing. Our muscles are growing also. Surprise a man in his bedroom of a morning, and you will find him lying on his back on the floor, or standing on his head, or whirling clubs, in pursuit of physical efficiency. I remember that once I "went in" for physical efficiency myself. I, too, lay on the floor, my delicate epidermis separated from the carpet by only the thinnest of garments, and I contorted myself according to the fifteen diagrams of a large chart (believed to be the magna charta of physical efficiency) daily after shaving. In three weeks my collars would not meet round my prize-fighter's neck; my hosier reaped immense profits, and I came to the conclusion that I had carried physical efficiency quite far enough.
A strange thing--was it not?--that I never had the idea of devoting a quarter of an hour a day after shaving to the pursuit of mental efficiency. The average body is a pretty complicated affair, sadly out of order, but happily susceptible to culture. The average mind is vastly more complicated, not less sadly out of order, but perhaps even more susceptible to culture. We compare our arms to the arms of the gentleman illustrated