The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-11-20

| sy. JOHN ID BARRY.
what impressed me most about Thomas A.
Edison during talk once had with him." said a
lady to me- was his being at peace with himself"
The remark struck me significant How many
of US were at peace with ourselves? Very few, IL
we could judge from the way most people spoke
and acted. How often, in our experience, the very
people who looked as if they were at peace with
themselves, proved on acquaintance, to be dis
turbed within, out of joint mentally and spirit
ually.
So far as Edison is concerned, one may ask
why he shouldn't be at peace with himself. He
is marvelously successful man. Wherever he
goes he is honored. For many years he has had
the world at his feet, benefactor of the whole
race engaged in Accordingly interesting work. OF
all men he would have, seemingly, the least ex-
cuse for not being at peace with himself And yet,
on the other hand, with many temperaments the
complexity of affairs that must be associated with
la life like Edison's would be the source of endless
disturbance Often success feeds mental and spirit
ual disorder. bringing expectations and exsetions
bound to create disappointment and bitterness.
The most successful people may be the most en-
FILTERED. Hence the many lamentations about sue
cess turning to dust and ashes in the mouth
echoed through literature.
The truth is that success is not enough for the
successful There must be the capacity for assim-
Hating it. for rejecting what is unhealthy in it and
for making the most of what is healthy The same
comment applies to failure. There those embit-
tered by failure who if they successful,
would be embittered, too They think the causes
lie outside, unaware that they are themselves the
source of the causes.
The problem of being at peace with oneself
haS attracted the interest of the philosophical and
the religious down the ages. 1t is, indeed one of
the greatest of all problems by many considered
the greatest There those who go so far as
to say either in words or in attitude, that it is
unSolvable. They include those who associate the
idea of peace with death, apparently believing
quite gratutously. it seems to me- that failure to
peace on this side of the grave may be fol-
lowed by its immediate acquisition when the other
side is reached. Can there be peace for those who
for a lifetime have maintained a disturbed con-
seriousness? And can there be peace if there is no
consciousness whatever? No one would think of
saying that the inanimate objects about us were
at peace with themselves.
There is writer of my acquaintance who
prides himself his faculty for concentration He
says that he could do his task in a boiler factory
Will sit among them and lose himself in work, I'M
aware of what is said, never catching syllable |
He is surely to be envied, particularly by those
who never learn to concentrate and whose minds |
are always drifting in the realms of the inconse-
quential. What he does be cultivated by every
one of US and easily cultivated too by being grad
ually developed into habit Once cultivated it |
will open the way to those powers that lead to
further control of the mind, with peace as one of
its greatest acquisitions.
There 0f other peo-
pie instantly acquire peace of mind by religious |
conversion. Forever afterward they rise superior |
to the vexations of circumstance. Others reach
this state of mind by long and patient striving.
Great trials and small they convert into sources
of power that apparently deepen their peace. How
trihing and unreal must the transient be to those
w live in the consciousness of the eternal
"Once used to let things and people bother me,
said a deeply religious woman to me the other
day, "and I got myself into such state that
used to long for physical pain to help me forget
my mental torments. Now ] have learned to love
what is best in people and to forget the rest and
have got out of the reach of the things that used
to upset me-.
1t does not follow, however, that because one
is religious one is at peace with oneself as we
all have had occasion to appreciate. There are
know religious people who make themselves miser-
able by resenting and criticising others, whose
views and ways different from their own. And
it does not follow that. because one leads per
fectly good life one is at peace with oneself Many
people, usually considered bad, are at peace with
themselves. Among some good people it is a
source of regret and pain that those bad people
should be happy, in other words that those bad
people should be blessed with faculty in its
nature essentially good.
Perhaps it is the Technology commonly
use that msleads in this matter. The good
people often have mixed with their goodness
qualities that bad. The bad people obvi
ously have qualities that are good, the human
zing qualities that make them lovable and that,
in many instances. give them advantage over
The good people. that keep them in attitude to-
ward the world and toward themselves that is
genial and that includes peace. There are quail
ties not generally recognized as menacing that
may preclude the possibility of peace, ambition,
overzeal, inability to things in their right pro-
portions, lack of humor. And yet not to reach
peace to live in constant turmoil, is to deny to
ourselves the best reward of living, the loss of
which can be compensated for by no success As
Shakespeare says, "Naughts gained, all's spent,
when our desire is got without content"