If we can trust the sources from which Charles Reade drew his deductions regarding the character of the parental stock, Erasmus came fairly by his sensitive disposition. In "The Cloister and the Hearth" we find the father of Erasmus, fleeing from his native land, in fear of his life on account of a crime he thought he had committed, frozen, famished and exhausted, unable to enter the door of a friendly inn on account of his aversion to the issuing odors. Forced by his sufferings at last to enter the inn, he visits each corner in turn, analyzing its peculiar smell and choosing finally the one which seems to him the least obnoxious. I have heard somewhere, but cannot place, the story of a prominent writer who was so disturbed by the mechanical lawn-mower of his neighbor that he insisted upon the privilege of defraying the expense of its replacement by the scythe. Peculiar sensitiveness to sights, sounds and smells seems to be a common attribute of genius. This sort of sensitiveness has even been credited with being the main-spring of genius, but it is improbable that the curbing of such aversions would in any way endanger it. However this may be, such supersensitiveness ill becomes the rest of us, and these extreme aversions surely clog, rather than accelerate, our efforts. * * * * * The natural tendency of the healthy mind is to accustom itself to new sensations, as the ring on the finger, or the spectacles on the nose. The obsessive individual resists this tendency; he starts with the fixed idea that he cannot stand the annoyance, his resentment increases, and his sensations become more, instead of less, acute. His reaction to criticism, slight, and ridicule is similar; he is prepared to start, blush, and show anger on moderate provocation, and can often reproduce both the sensation and its accompanying physical signs by merely recalling the circumstance. The passive as well as the active obsessions can be overcome by cultivating the commonplace, or average normal, attitude, and resolving gradually to accustom one's self to the disagreeable. This change of attitude can be made in adult life as well as in youth. "You cannot teach an old dog new tricks," we are told. The reason is not that the old dog cannot learn them, but that he does not want to. I met in Germany a British matron who was obsessed with the belief that she could not learn the language. At the end of four years' sojourn she entered a store and asked the price of an article. "Four marks," was the answer. "How much in English money?" she inquired. "Why, madam, a mark is the same as a shilling." "I don't know anything about that; how much is it in English?" "Four shillings." "Ah, quite so; you might have told me at once."