4th. When you have at last established connection;
Do it as often as you think of it;—
Stop before you are tired.
The last direction is the patentable secret of this process.
Always before we have been taught to strive unceasingly for our virtues; and to reproach ourselves bitterly if we "back-slide." When we learn more of our mental machinery we shall feel differently about back-sliding. When you are learning the typewriter or the bicycle or the use of skates, you do not gain by practicing day and night. Practice—and rest; that is the trick.
After you have learned your new virtue, it will not tire you to practice it; but while you are learning, go slow.
If you essay to hold your arm out straight; and hold it there till muscle and nerve are utterly exhausted, you have gone backward rather than forward in establishing the habit. But if you deliberately pour nerve force along that arm for a while, holding it out as you choose; and then withdraw the nerve force, release the pressure, discontinue the determination, drop the arm, because you choose, and before you are tired—then you can repeatedly hold it out a little longer until you have mastered the useless art.
Don't waste nerve force on foolish and unnecessary things—physical or moral; but invest it, carefully, without losing an ounce, in the gradual and easy acquisition of whatever new habits You, as the Conscious Master, desire to develop in your organism.
O FAITHFUL CLAY!
O faithful clay of ancient brain!
Deep graven with tradition dim,
Hard baked with time and glazed with pain,
On your blind page man reads again
What else were lost to him.