Self-Suggestion is a great help, if we would keep happy. We can tell ourselves to keep happy, in the same way as Peter Latham, at a hard and critical point in one of his Professional Championship Matches, kept not only happy but also plucky by telling himself to “buck up,” as this was _the_ chance to bring out his best game! Self-Suggestion has many forms and varieties. Henry Wood, in his “Ideal Suggestion Through Mental Photography,” advises us to write down inspiring “Self-Suggestions,” and to look at them often. Leland, in his “Have You a Strong Will?” advises us to determine, the last thing at night, that the next day we will, for example, work calmly and easily and successfully. I myself find that now one form of Self-Suggestion is most effective, now another. It may be Imagination or Realisation or Assertion, or it may be a quiet order to the Servant Mind or Manager Mind, or it may be a strongly-felt and repeated Desire, or it may be nearer to Silence and Receptivity, together with “the attitude of expectancy.” Self-suggestion is feasible at all times and in all places. It is unobtrusive. It is “without money and without price.” It is effective. It tends to become a sub-conscious habit, and, as it were, to “do itself” without our attention. To keep happy, we can use happy words. Words have vast and little appreciated power. Think how useless we should be as regards our power of controlling ourselves and helping ourselves and helping others, if we had no words! It would be easy to write a long book on this aspect of the Art of Happiness, alone. But I must be content with just one idea. We should speak with a cheerful voice and tone, as well as with a cheerful face; and we should prefer, to such words of ill omen as “miserable” and “cruel,” words that end rightly, such as un-happy and un-kind--words that leave us with the right and happy notion. Conversely, however, when we are--or think that we are--absolutely obliged to mention some unpleasant episode, in order to get others to help to put it right, we must _not_ use such vivid expressions--we must not speak whiningly nor even keenly. This is preeminently the occasion for such a monotonous and expressionless voice, as is unusually put on by a Secretary when reading the minutes of any previous meeting! Can we not speak of pleasant things with the excitedness of the French, if indeed we wish to be excited at all; but speak of unpleasant things, if we feel we must speak of them, with the apathy of the Hindu? When you have finished any Self-Suggestion, be sure to keep happy. To keep happy, we must use Repetitions of Self-Suggestions and of Happy Words, and we must use them long before we seem to need them. In place of the old adage, “In time of peace prepare for war,” one can substitute, “In time of peace prepare for victory”--and then there will be no real war. Persistent Repetitions