THE IDEAL AND THE PRACTICAL: Page 9

and all the while he has had to keep up a brave and hopeful attitude of mind. And, mark you, he scorns to think of failure. It is for him to try his level best. It is for nature, which is a hard though a just pay-mistress, to bring him his reward in its due season. The above is a fair example of the exercise of Imagination. Fancy plays us tricks. It is not the man who pulls the strings this time. He simply yields himself to the influence of all sorts of impossible day-dreams. His mind is a sieve for thoughts to pass in and out. It is an aimless, idle, wandering, and brings ready victims for the "pitch-and-toss" game of men whose principle is to "do' others before the latter can have a turn at them. A man is what his ideals are. If one man with an ideal makes fifty mistakes in a day, the man without an ideal is sure to commit many more. This is a simple truth, yet it will bear repetition here. All muscular actions, whether mental or physical, are simply fragments from the ideal. "The life of the ideal is in the practical; it is the ideal that has penetrated the whole of our life, whether we philosophise or perform the hard, everyday duties of life. . . . It is the ideal that has made us what we are and will make us what we are to be. ... The principle is seldom expressed in the practical, yet the ideal is never lost sight of- ("Pavhari Baba" by Vivekananda).