Y.M. Yes.
O.M. You will never get rid of it; but by watching
it you can keep it down nearly all the time.
Its presence is your limit.
Your reform will never quite reach perfection, for
your temper will beat you now and then, but you come
near enough. You have made valuable progress
and can make more. There is use in training.
Immense use. Presently you will reach a new
stage of development, then your progress will be easier;
will proceed on a simpler basis, anyway.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. You keep back your scoldings now, to please
yourself by pleasing your mother; presently
the mere triumphing over your temper will delight
your vanity and confer a more delicious pleasure and
satisfaction upon you than even the approbation of
your mother confers upon you now. You will
then labor for yourself directly and at first
hand, not by the roundabout way through your
mother. It simplifies the matter, and it also
strengthens the impulse.
Y.M. Ah, dear! But I sha’n’t
ever reach the point where I will spare the girl for
her sake primarily, not mine?
O.M. Why—yes. In heaven.
Y.M. (After A reflective pause) Temperament.
Well, I see one must allow for temperament.
It is a large factor, sure enough. My mother
is thoughtful, and not hot-tempered. When I
was dressed I went to her room; she was not there;
I called, she answered from the bathroom. I heard
the water running. I inquired. She answered,
without temper, that Jane had forgotten her bath,
and she was preparing it herself. I offered to
ring, but she said, “No, don’t do that;
it would only distress her to be confronted with her
lapse, and would be a rebuke; she doesn’t deserve
that—she is not to blame for the tricks
her memory serves her.” I say—has
my mother an Interior Master?—and where
was he?
O.M. He was there. There, and looking
out for his own peace and pleasure and contentment.
The girl’s distress would have pained your
mother. Otherwise the girl would have been
rung up, distress and all. I know women who
would have gotten a No. 1 Pleasure out of ringing
Jane up—and so they would infallibly have
pushed the button and obeyed the law of their make
and training, which are the servants of their Interior
Masters. It is quite likely that a part of your
mother’s forbearance came from training.
The good kind of training—whose best
and highest function is to see to it that every time
it confers a satisfaction upon its pupil a benefit
shall fall at second hand upon others.
Y.M. If you were going to condense into an admonition
your plan for the general betterment of the race’s
condition, how would you word it?
O.M. Diligently train your ideals upward
and still upward toward a summit where you
will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which,
while contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits
upon your neighbor and the community.
