How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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modify this striving for personal power so that his
ambition is diverted into socially valuable channels.
It is not the purpose of this book to instruct you in the
art of being an angel. It is enough if we learn to avoid
the more egregious mistakes, and substitute minor errors
for the tragic aberrations which kill and maim the spirit.
The following cases show the. processes of character
evolution and demonstrate a few of the more typical
variations from the ideal norm.
Ehe Evolution of a Personality
John C. was a very small boy. He was teased by his
playmates because he was ugly and less capable at games
than the average boy of his neighbourhood. He hated his
older sisters because they seemed better endowed with the
qualities which make people beloved. They succeeded
better in their school studies than he did, and he was
constantly under the pressure of his parents’ criticism
for his scholastic shortcomings, and his failure to live up
to his sisters’ reputation. His mother was indifferent to
him, and his father constantly nagged him to “ uphold
the family name ”. Throughout his childhood he felt
himself under pressure.
He sensed his own impotence and satisfied himself as
a child by bullying smaller children, torturing animals,
and imagining himself a very great man. His father was
a chemist, and at an early age he felt that he wanted to
master the secrets contained in the rows and rows of
mysterious bottles that lined his father’s shelves.
Surreptitiously he took out the powders and fed the cats of
the neighbourhood with them to test his powers, often
with tragic results to the cats. As he grew into adolescence
a persistent acne made him self-conscious and widened
the gulf between him and his class-mates. He
was a brooding, morose, isolated, uncouth individual.
Chemistry was his passion. Ultimately he entered one
of the large technical colleges.
At college he made no friends, but he took more