Charles Godfrey Leland

“ He who can control his own mind by an iron will, and say to the Thoughts which he would banish, "Be ye my slaves and begone into outer darkness," or to Peace "Dwell with me forever, come what may," and be obeyed, that man is a mighty magician who has attained what is worth more than all that Earth possesses. Absolute self-control under the conditions before defined—since our happiness to be true must agree with that of others—is absolutely essential to happiness. There can be no greater hero than the man who can conquer himself and think exactly as he pleases. ”

“ He who has by foresight, or previous consideration of a subject or desire, allied to a vigorous resolution (which is a kind of projection of the mind by will—and then submitting it to sleep) , learned how to bring about a wished-for state of mind, has, in a curious manner, made as it were of his hidden self a conquest yet a friend. He has brought to life within himself a Spirit, gifted with greater powers than those possessed by Conscious Intellect. By his astonishing and unsuspected latent power, Man can imagine and then create, even a spirit within the soul. ”

“ He who wills it sincerely can govern his Will, and he who can govern his Will is a thousand times more fortunate than if he could govern the world. For to govern the Will is to be without fear, superior and indifferent to all earthly follies and shams, idols, cants and delusions, it is to be lord of a thousand isles in the sea of life, and absolutely greater than any living mortal, as men exist. Small need has that man to heed what his birth or station in society may be who has mastered himself with the iron will; for he who has conquered death and the devil need fear no shadows. ”

“ But the magic of which I speak is of a far more subtle and deeply refined nature, and those who possess it are alone in life, save when by some rare chance they meet their kind. Those who are deeply and mysteriously interested in any pursuit for which the great multitude of all-alike people have no sympathy, who have peculiar studies and subjects of thought, partake a little of the nature of the magus. Magic, as popularly understood, has no existence, it is a literal myth—for it means nothing but what amazes or amuses for a short time. ”

“ To be true we must be far more familiar with Nature than with scene painting or photographs, and to do this we must, so to speak, fascinate ourselves with pictures in life, glad memories of golden hours, rock and river and greenwood tree. We must also banish resolutely from our past all recollections of enemies and wrongs, troubles and trials, and throw all our heart into doing so. Forgive and forget all enmities—those of Misfortune and Fate being included. Depend upon it that the brighter you can make your Past the pleasanter will be your Future. ”

“ When the artist thinks too little he lacks sense, when he thinks too much he loses fire. In the very highest and most strangely mysterious poetical flights of SHELLEY and KEATS, or WORDSWORTH, I find the very same Instinct which inspires the skylark and nightingale, but more or less allied to and strengthened by Thought or Consciousness. If human Will or Wisdom alone directed all our work, then every man who had mere patience might be a great original genius, and it is indeed true that Man can do inconceivably more in following and imitating genius than has ever been imagined. ”

“ Forethought is the tap on the bell, the push of the bow, the draw on the saber. It is the deliberate yet rapid action of the mind when before falling to sleep or dismissing thought we bid the mind to subsequently respond. It is more than merely thinking what we are to do; it is the bidding or ordering self to fulfill a task before willing it. ”

“ The more the conscious waking-judgment has been trained to recognize goodness, the more will the hidden water-fairies rise above the surface, as it were, to the sunshine. So it comes that true kindly feeling is recognized by sympathy, and those who would be loved, cannot do better than make themselves truly and perfectly kind by forethought and will, and with this the process of self-hypnotism will be a great aid. For it is not more by winning others to us, than in willing ourselves to them that true Love consists. ”

“ All men of great natural strength of mind, gifted with the will to do and dare, the beings of action and genius, act directly, and are like athletes who lift a tree by the simple exertion of the muscles. He who achieves his aim by self-culture, training, or suggestion, is like one who raises the weight by means of a lever, and if he practice it often enough he may in the end become as strong as the other. ”

“ He who will thus resolutely clean up his past life and clear away from it all sorrow as well as he can, and refurnish it with beautiful memories, or make it better, coûte que coûte, will do himself more good than many a doleful moral adviser ever dreamed of. This is what I mean by self-fascination—the making, as it were, by magic art, one's own past and self more charming than we ever deemed it possible to be. We thus fascinate ourselves. Those who believe that everything which is bygone has gone to the devil are in a wretched error. ”

“ A pure Will must be moral, for it is the result of the perception of Ideals, or a Conscience. The world in general regards Will as mere blind force, applicable to good or bad indifferently. But the more truly and fully it is developed, or as Orson is raised to Valentine, the more moral and optimistic does it become. Will in its perfection is Genius, spontaneous originality, that is Voluntary; not merely a power to lift a weight, or push a load, or force others to yield, but the Thought itself which suggests the deed and finds a reason for it. ”

“ If an artist, say a painter, will take forethought for a certain picture, whether the subject be determined or not, bringing himself to that state of easy, assured confidence, as a matter of course that he will retain the subject he will, if not at the first effort, almost certainly at last find himself possessed of it. Let him beware of haste, or of forcing the work. When he shall have secured suggestive Interest let him will that Ingenuity shall be bolder and his spirit draw from the stores of memory more abundant material. ”

“ In an Italian fairy tale a prince besieges a castle with an army—trumpets blowing, banners waving, and all the pomp and circumstances of war—to obtain a beautiful heroine who is meanwhile carried away by a rival who knew of a subterranean passage. Hitherto, as I have already said, men have sought for self-control only by means of heroic exertion, or by besieging the castle from without; the simple system of Forethought and Self-Suggestion enables one, as it were, to steal or slip away with ease by night and in darkness that fairest of princesses, La Volonté, or the Will. ”

“ It is curious that this idea has long been familiar to believers in magic. In more than one Italian legend which I have collected a sorceress or goddess evolves a life from her own soul, as a fire emits a spark. In fact, the fancy occurs in some form in all mythologies, great or small. In one old Irish legend a wizard turns a Thought into a watch-dog. The history of genius and of Invention is that of realizing ideas, of making them clearer and stronger and more comprehensive. ”

“ It is a stupendous thought; yes, one so great that from the beginning of time to the present day no sage or poet has ever grasped it in its full extent, and yet is is a very literal truth, that there lie hidden within us all, as in a sealed-up spiritual casket, or like the bottled-up djinn in the Arab tale, innumerable Powers or Intelligences, some capable of bestowing peace or calm, others of giving Happiness, or inspiring creative genius, energy and perseverance. ”

“ It may seem a bold thing to say that it did not occur to any philosopher through the ages that man, resolute and noble and free, might will himself into a stage of mind defying devils and phantasms, or that amid the infinite possibilities of human nature there was the faculty of assuming the Indifference habitual to all animals when not alarmed. But he who will consider these studies on Self-Hypnotism may possibly infer from them that we have indeed within us a marvelous power of creating states of mind which make the idea of Pessimism ridiculous. ”

“ It may begin in imagining or fancy, but as the veriest dream is material and may be repeated till we see it visibly and can then copy it, so can we create in ourselves a being, a segregation of our noblest thoughts, a superb abstraction of soul which looks from its sunny mountain height down on the dark and noisome valley which forms our worldly common intellect or mind, or the only one known to by far the majority of mankind, albeit they may have therein glimpses of light and truth. ”

“ Yes, they are all there—every image of the past, every face which ever smiled on us—the hopes and fears of bygone years—the rustling of grass and flowers and the roar of the sea—the sound of trumpets in processions grand—the voices of the great and good among mankind—or what you will. ”

“ In the first place, he who would be loved must love—for that is no honest love which is not sincere. And having thus inspired himself, and made himself as familiar as possible, by quietly observing as dispassionately as may be all the mental characteristics of the one loved, let him with an earnest desire to know how to secure a return, go to sleep, and see whether the next day will bring a suggestion. And as the old proverb declares that luck comes to many when least hoped for, so will it often happen that forethought is thus fore-bought or secured. ”

“ Yes, Foresight or Forethought projects itself in all things, and it is a serious consideration, or one of such immense value, that when really understood, and above all subjected to some practice—such as I have described, and which, as far as I can see, is necessary—one can bring it to bear intelligently on all the actions of life, that is to say, to much greater advantage than when we use it ignorantly, just as a genius endowed with strength can do far more with it than an ignoramus. ”

“ For as we can get into the fearful state of constantly recalling all who have ever vexed or wronged us, or nursing the memory of what we hate or despise, until our minds are like sewers or charnel-houses of dead and poisonous things, so we can resolutely banish them, at first by forethought, then by suggestion, and finally by waking will. And verily there are few people living who would not be the better for such exercise. Many there are who say that they would fain forget and be serene, yet cannot. I do not believe this. We can all exorcise our devils—all of them—if we will. ”

“ No one can be expected to take an interest at once and by mere will in any subject, but where an earnest and serious Attention has been directed to it, Interest soon follows. Hence it comes that those who deliberately train themselves in Society after the precept enforced by all great writers of social maxims to listen politely and patiently, are invariably rewarded by acquiring at last shrewd intelligence, as is well known to diplomatists. That mere stolid patience subdues impatience sounds like a dull common-place saying, but it is a silver pencil disguised as an iron screw ”

“ For he who wills to be equable and indifferent to the small and involuntary annoyances, teasing memories, irritating trifles, which constitute the chief trouble in life to most folk, can bring it about, in small measure at first and in due time to greater perfection. And by perseverance this rivulet may to a river run, the river fall into a mighty lake, and this in time rush to the roaring sea; that is to say, from bearing with indifference or quite evading attacks of ennui, we may come to enduring great afflictions with little suffering. ”

“ And it is well to remember that while the Greeks in all their glory of Art and Poetry were unquestionably rational or consciously intelligent, there was not among them the thousandth part of the anxious worrying, the sentimental self-seeking and examination, or the Introversion which worms itself in and out of, and through and through, all modern work, action and thought, even as mercury in an air-pump will permeate the hardest wood. ”

“ But he is not the only thinker—there are all over the body ganglions which act by a kind of fluid instinct, born of repetition, and when the tired master even drowses or nods, or falls into a brown study, then a marvelously curious mental action begins to show itself, for dreams at once flicker and peer and steal dimly about him. This is because the waking consciousness is beginning to shut out the world—and its set of ideas. ”

“ Now this does not mean that a man can become a SHAKESPEARE or SHELLEY by means of all the forethought and suggestion in the world, but they will, if well developed and directed, draw out from the mystic depths of mind such talent as he has—doubtless in some or all cases more than he has ever shown. ”

“ But it is built on a gigantic scale, for it is thought that no man, however learned or experienced he might be, ever contrived during all his life to so much as even half fill the cells of his memory. And if any reader should be apprehensive lest it come to pass with him in this age of unlimited supply of cheap knowledge that he will fill all his cells let him console himself with the reflection that it is supposed that Nature, in such a case, will have a further supply of new cells ready, she never, as yet, having failed in such rough hospitality, though it often leaves much to be desired! ”

“ It is very evident that as soon as men become self-conscious of great work, or cease to work for the sake of enjoying Art, or its results, and turn all their attention to the genius or cleverness, or character or style, self, et cetera, of the artist, or of themselves, a decadence sets in, as there did after the Renaissance, when knowledge or enjoyment of Art was limited, and guided by familiarity with names and schools and "manners," or the like, far more than by real beauty in itself. ”

“ There are many people who from a mere idle habit or self-indulgence and irrepressible loquacity make their own lives and those of others very miserable—as all my readers can confirm from experience. I once knew a man of great fortune, with many depending on him, who vented his ill-temper and petty annoyances on almost everyone to whom he spoke. He was so fully aware of this failing that he at once, in confessing it to a mutual friend, shed tears of regret. Yet he was a millionaire man of business, and had a strong will which might have been directed to a cure. ”