Page:The Sunday Eight O'Clock (1916).pdf/206

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find a cool spot; who fuss and fume and fan until they are red in the face and running perspiration. The best way to keep cool is to go about your work methodically, be as quiet as you can, and forget the weather.

It is much the same way with the other worries of life. We grow hot over the slights and insults, we are agitated over our misfortunes as we talk of them, and let our minds dwell upon them, and exaggerate them. We are constantly tending the fires of anger or resentment or they would shortly burn themselves out.

The man who under stress, and irritation, and misrepresentation can keep his balance, can control his temper and his tongue, can subdue the rising emotions, has conserved his own strength, has made it possible for himself to do more and better work, and has more than half defeated the purposes of his opponent.

"How can you sit so calmly and say nothing?" I asked a friend of mine not long ago,