Speaker 1: Mental pictures. I hang bright pictures in my mind. Bright
pictures encourage one. Gloomy ones depress, Get rid of your old,
gloomy mental pictures, make a bonfire of them, get rid
of the particularly miserable one first of all, then put
bright ones in their places. I now hang bright pictures
in my mind, said a friend to me recently. Her
remark explained to me, without the necessity of further words,
the cause of her bright, cheerful and happy disposition so
greatly in contrast with that of the despondent, fretful woman
I had known a few months ago. The change seemed
so remarkable that one would have almost expected her to
have claimed some startling currents as the cause of the
wondrous transformation, and instead of giving so commonplace an explanation.
But just think how much there is in this thought.
I hang bright pictures in my mind. Stop a moment,
and let the thought sink deep into your inner consciousness.
Bright pictures in the mind. Why not? Indeed, if we
wish to make a chamber or office bright and cheery,
we see that nothing but pictures representing bright, cheerful subjects
are hung there. They may be the choicest engravings or paintings,
or they may be some little inexpensive things. But just
so they are bright and cheery, the purpose is accomplished,
and the room somehow see a happier, more joyous place
than before. If we were preparing a new room for
the occupancy of some dear one, would we place there
any but the brightest picture? Would we hang there? Pictures
of pain and misery, hate and murder, jealousy and revenge, sickness,
suffering and death, failure and discouragement. Would we do this thing?
I ask you? Would you do it? And if not,
why not? Pray? Simply because you in extinctively feel that
the gloomy, hateful subjects would react upon the loved one,
And you know is the same way that the bright, cheerful,
and inspiring subjects are likely to uplift, stimulate, encourage, and
make better the occupant of the chamber. Have you ever
noticed that some rooms always seem to exert a beneficial
effect upon you, while others seem to depress you? Certainly
you have well the next time you go into these rooms,
look around a little and see if the explanation of
your moods is not to be found in the character
of the pictures on the walls. You may not have
specially noticed them before, but your subconscious mental faculties have
taken up the impression and the reflex action has affected you.
Who can resist the fetching qualities of a bright baby
face smiling from a little picture on the mantle or
on the wall? Not I for one? And who can
help feeling the sense of comradeship for the kindly Saint Bernard,
whose great affectionate eyes look down upon you from the
engraving on the other side of the room. And on
the other hand, who could? But now I'm not going
to describe the other kind of pictures in this article,
But now to get back to the pictures in the mind.
If the gloomy pictures on the wall affect people, what
do you suppose will be the effect of carrying around gloomy, fearful, hateful, jealous, envious,
despondent mental pictures? Can any good come of lugging this
trash around with you? Come? Now, be honest, why don't
you bundle up these horrible cormas of the mind and
then make a bonfire of the lot. Now is the
time for a mental house cleaning. Get to work and
clean out these miserable DoBeS and replace them with a nice, bright, cheerful, happy,
sunny mental works of art. Do it to day. You
can't afford to put it off until tomorrow. Indeed you can't. Oh. Yes,
I know that you have grown attached to some of
these old mental pictures. You've had them round so long
that you hate to part with them. There's that particular
miserable one at which you're so fond of looking. You
know which one. I mean, you see, I know all
about it. You've been in the habit of standing before
it with folded hands and gazing and gazing and gazing
at it. And the more you gazed, the more miserable
you grew, until at last you felt that you would
like to lie down and die, only that there was
some work to do around the house and you could
spare the time. Yes, that's the picture. I mean. Take
it down and put it on top of the bonfire pile,
and touch off the whole lot. Then go back into
the house and hang up all the new ones to
be found, And the brightest one of the lot must
hang in the place of that dear old miserable one
that you threw out last that one which was so
hard to part with, the meanest one in the lot. Always,
and after you have done these things, how good you
will feel. See how bright and cheerful the sun is shining,
How pure and fresh the air seems. Take a good
long draft of it. Look out the window and see
the fleecing white clouds floating across the sky. The sky itself,
how blue it is. And just listen to the bluebirds
down by the old gate. Spring must be coming. Ah,
how good it is to be alive.