SECOND NATURE. 13 



pace, as if acted upon magically by some powerful 

 spell, and forgot at once all about his sulky temper. 

 Much the same sort of routine practice is appar- 

 ent in the lives of every one of us. An immense 

 number of little acts and phrases every day are 

 performed and repeated by pure force of habit. 

 We do ten thousand habitual things, as it were, 

 instinctively. "How do you do?" we ask a friend 

 twenty times running, if we meet him again ; not 

 because we want to assure ourselves as to the 

 state of his constitution so very frequently, but 

 because the mere act of meeting him calls up the 

 words mechanically to our lips. "Quite well, 

 thank you," we answer thoughtlessly to casual 

 inquiries about the health of our families, even 

 though we may at that very moment be anxiously 

 running to get the doctor on the sudden outbreak 

 of scarlet fever in the bosom of the household. 

 In the same way, when we have once got into the 

 habit of addressing letters to a particular person 

 at a particular place, the mere act of writing his 

 name upon an envelope is followed almost irresis- 

 tibly by the familiar number of the house and 

 direction of the street in which he lives. We 

 may have been accustomed for twenty years to 

 send all our notes for Jeremiah Tompkins to 37 

 East Fourteenth Street, New York City ; if in- 

 creasing means and fashionable desires induce our 

 friend to remove to the more select neighborhood 



