“This is glorious, Edward; and it’s as interesting as painting a picture or writing a book! What a capital device the race with Mr. ‘Cross-man’ is! It’s like ‘Sintram.’ He’ll be so much on the qui vive for ‘Cross-man’ that he’ll forget to be cross. The only danger I see is that of many false alarms. He’ll try the race, in all good faith, when there is no foe in pursuit.”
“That’s very likely; but it will do no harm. He is getting the habit of running away from the evil, and may for that be the more ready to run when ’tis at his heels; this, of running away from temptation, is the right principle, and may be useful to him in a thousand ways.”
“Indeed, it may be a safeguard to him through life. How did you get the idea?”
“Do you remember how Rover was cured of barking after carriages? There were two stages to the cure; the habit of barking was stopped, and a new habit was put in its place; I worked upon the recognised law of association of ideas, and got Rover to associate the rumble of wheels with a newspaper in his mouth. I tried at the time to explain how it was possible to act thus on the ‘mind’ of a dog.”
“I recollect quite well, you said that the stuff—nervous tissue, you called it—of which the brain is made is shaped in the same sort of way—at least so I understood—by the thoughts that are in it, as the cover of a tart is shaped by the plums below. And then, when there’s a place ready for them in the brain, the same sort of thoughts always come to fill it.”
“I did not intend to say precisely that,” said Mr. Belmont, laughing, “especially the plum part. However, it will do. Pray go on with your metaphor. It is decided that plums are not wholesome eating. You put in your thumb, and pick out a plum; and that the place may be filled, and well filled, you pop in a—a—figures fail me—a peach!”
“I see! I see! Guy’s screaming fits are the unwholesome plum which we are picking out, and the running away from Cross-man the peach to be got in instead. (I don’t see why it should be a peach though, unpractical man!) His brain is to grow to the shape of the peach, and behold, the place is filled. No more room for the plum.”[21]
“You have it; you have put, in a light way, a most interesting law, and I take much blame to myself that I never thought, until now, of applying it to Guy’s case. But now I think we are making way; we have made provision for dislodging the old habit and setting a new one in its place.”
“Don’t you think the child will be a hero in a very small way, when he makes himself run away from his temper?”