“But,” some one will say, “how are we to know what is real and what is not?  I would much rather live my life and get more or less unreality than have this everlasting analyzing.”  There need be no abnormal analyzing; that is as morbid as the other state.  Indulge to your heart’s content in whatever seems to you real, in what you believe to be wholesome sentiment.  But be ready to recognize it as sham at the first hint you get to that effect, and to drop it accordingly.

A perfectly healthy body will shed germs of disease without ever feeling their presence.  So a perfectly healthy mind will shed the germs of sentimentality.  Few of us are so healthy in mind but that we have to recognize a germ or two and apply a disinfectant before we can reach the freedom that will enable us to shed the germs unconsciously.  A good disinfectant is, to refuse to talk of our own feelings or desires or affections, unless for some end which we know may help us to more light and better strength.  Talking, however, is mild in its weakening effect compared with thinking.  It is better to dribble sham sentiment in words over and over than to think it, and repress the desire to talk.  The only clear way is to drop it from our minds the moment it appears; to let go of it as we would loosen our fingers and drop something disagreeable from our hands.

A good amount of exercise and fresh air helps one out of sentimentalizing.  This morbid mental habit is often the result of a body ill in some way or another.  Frequently it is simply the effect of tired nerves.  We help others and ourselves out of it more rapidly by not mentioning the sentimentalizing habit, but by taking some immediate means towards rest, fresh air, vigorous exercise, and better nourishment.

Mistakes are often made and ourselves or others kept an unnecessary length of time in mental suffering because we fail to attribute a morbid mental state to its physical cause.  We blame ourselves or others for behavior that we call wicked or silly, and increase the suffering, when all that is required is a little thoughtful care of the body to cause the silly wickedness to disappear entirely.

We are supposed to be indulging in sickly sentiment when we are really suffering from sickly nerves.  An open sympathy will detect this mistake very soon, and save intense suffering by an early remedy.

Sentiment is as strengthening as sentimentality is weakening.  It is as strong, as clear, and as fine in flavor as the other is sickly sweet.  No one who has tasted the wholesome vigor of the one could ever care again for the weakening sweetness of the other, however much he might have to suffer in getting rid of it.  True sentiment seeks us; we do not seek it.  It not only seeks us, it possesses us, and runs in our blood like the new life which comes from fresh air on top of a mountain.  With that true sentiment we can feel a desire to know better things and to live them.  We can feel a hearty