Poise: How to Attain It | Page 9

who inclined to the methods that consist of object lessons, one day asked two children to make a choice between two piles, one of straw, the other of wood. It is hardly necessary to add that while the size of the pile of straw was great that of the wood was hardly one-tenth of the volume.
The first child, when told to make his choice, took the mass of straw, which he set on fire easily enough, warming himself first from a respectful distance and then at close range, in proportion as the heat of the fire grew less.
In so doing he made great sport of his companion, who struggled meanwhile to set alight the pile of wood. But what was the outcome?
The huge mass of straw was soon burned out, while the wood, once lit, furnished a tranquil and steady flame, which the first child watched with envy while seated by the mass of cinders that alone remained of the vanished pile that he had chosen.
The man of real poise is like the child who, disclaiming the transitory blaze of the straw, prefers to work patiently at building a fire whose moderate heat will afford him a durable and useful warmth.
Let us then beware of sudden unreasoning enthusiasms. After the ephemeral flame of their first ardor has burned itself out we shall but find ourselves seated by the mass of ashes formed of our mistakes and our dead energies.
The rock on which so many abortive attempts are wrecked in the effort to achieve poise is a type of sentimentality peculiar to certain natures.
This state of mind is characterized by a craving for expansion, which is all the more irritating since the timidity of the person concerned prevents it from being satisfied.
In place of relying upon themselves, feeling their disabilities and the lack of poise which prevents them from proper expression, such people try to make themselves understood by those who do not appreciate their feelings, without stopping to think that they have done nothing to make clear what they really need.
Such a chaotic state of mind, based on errors of judgment, is a very serious obstacle to the acquisition of poise.
This anxiety to communicate their feelings, always rendered ineffective by the difficulty of making the effort involved, gives rise in the long run to a species of misanthropy.
It is a matter of common knowledge that misanthropy urges those who suffer from it to fall back upon themselves, and from this state to that of active hostility toward others the road is short, and timid people are rarely able to pull up before they have traversed it.
There comes to them from this intellectual solitude an unhappiness so profound that they are glad to be able to attribute to the mental inferiority of others the condition of moral isolation in which they live.
To insist that they are misunderstood, and to pride themselves upon the fact, is the inevitable fate of those who never can summon up courage to undertake a battle against themselves.
It seems to them a thousand times easier to say: "These minds are too gross to comprehend mine," than to seek for a means of establishing an understanding with those whom they tax with ignorance and insensibility.
They might, perhaps, be convinced of the utility to them of divulging their feelings, could they be forced into a position where they had to defend their ideas or were compelled to put up a fight on behalf of their convictions.
In the ranks of the enemies of poise sullenness most certainly finds a place.
It is the fault of the feeble-spirited who have not the energy to affirm their sentiments or to make a plain statement of their convictions that they become incensed with those who oppose them.
In their case a good deal of false pride is present. They know themselves to be beaten and to be incapable of fighting, yet they are too vain to accept defeat. They refuse the sympathy that wounds them, and suffer the more from their inability to yield themselves to that good-will which would aid and comfort them.
From this mental conflict is born an irritation that manifests itself in the form of obstinate sullenness.
In other cases the same state of mind may produce radically different results.
Always obsessed by the fear of appearing ridiculous and by the no less vivid dread of seeming to be an object of sympathy, such people are often driven through lack of poise into extreme boastfulness.
No man who has poise will ever fall a victim to this misfortune.
He knows exactly what his capabilities are and he has no need to exaggerate his own abilities to impress his friends.
Poise calls for action, when this becomes necessary; but the man of resolve, being always prepared to do what is needful, considers mere boasting and bravado as something