Stevereads: As a Man Thinketh!

Our book today is an old little chestnut: 'old' being, amazingly, well over a century and 'little' being the operative word: James Allen's perennially bestselling self-help classic As a Man Thinketh, published in 1903, is hardly 50 pages long – easy to read in an hour, easy to slip a little edition into any pocket, ready to answer for any quiet moment or sudden need.

The sudden need arises from what an earlier generation referred to as “life's vicissitudes.” Allen's little book is designed to arm a reader against Life's Vicissitudes. He breaks his book into three very broad sections: “Thought and Character,” “Thought and Circumstance,” “Visions and Ideals” – certainly broad enough to encompass his main points, which really boil down to one point: the more a man (read: human being) controls himself in the face of adversity, the happier he'll be as a person and the more valuable he'll be as a citizen.

In the hyper-cynical 21st century, in which every setback is a social media cause, every criticism is a demographic repression, and Life's Vicissitudes are always personal, always unfair, and always, always somebody else's fault, 50 pages of somebody basically telling you to “Get a Grip” comes off as a … you guessed it … a worse crime than the Holocaust.

And it doesn't help things any that Allen writes in the unmistakable full flow of Edwardian prose:

It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because of one's virtue; but not until a man has extirpated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought from his mind, and washed every sinful stain from his soul, can he be in a position to know and declare that his sufferings are the result of his good, and not his bad qualities; and on the way to, yet long before he has reached, that supreme perfection, he will have found, working in his mind and life, the Great Law which is absolutely just, and which cannot, therefore, give good for evil, evil for good. Possessed of such knowledge, he will then know, looking back upon his past ignorance and blindness, that his life is, and always was, justly ordered, and that all his past experiences good and bad, were the equitable outworking of his evolving, yet unevolved self.

It cascades like a gentle waterfall, all those gorgeous subordinate clauses lapping and pooling to their objects, but it's going to read like torture to ears trained on Twitter.

But, however mellifluous, is he actually right? He sings the praises of keeping a calm mind – “Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom,” he writes with complete certainty. “The honest man reaps the good results of his honest thoughts and acts; he also brings upon himself the sufferings which his vices produce.” Quite apart from phrasing, sentiments like these seem self-evidently false, right? Leaving aside the entire thriving industry of motivational books, has anything even remotely valuable (to the person or the citizen) ever come from a calm mind? And who can look at the affairs of their neighbors or the affairs of the world and really believe that people bring their own misfortunes upon them? How on Earth could James Allen seem so blithely unaware of so universal a concept as bad luck?

Even so, there's no denying the power of his exhortation. Above all, As a Man Thinketh is stirring. Allen avoids explicit Christianity as much as any writer could in 1903, but he insists that his readers have in their own hands the power to change their lives – which is certainly a refreshing change from the majority of later self-help books that prefer to tell their readers that only “Grifter [X]” has the power to change their lives. And can anybody who's read this little book forget its thrilling farewell?

Tempest-tossed souls, wherever ye may be, under whatsoever conditions ye may live, know this – in the ocean of life the isles of Blessedness are smiling, and the sunny shore of your ideals awaits your coming. Keep your hand firmly upon the helm of thought. In the barque of your soul reclines the commanding Master; He does but sleep; wake Him. Self-control is strength; Right Thought is mastery; Calmness is power. Say unto your heart, “Peace be still!”

(Again with the “peace” business – this guy was a hippie before his time)

As far as I know, As a Man Thinketh has been in print continuously for over a century; it's had a multitude of editions, each of them given by the box-full to graduating classes of wide-eyed students. The charming little edition I most recently encountered was made by Peter Pauper Press, which is almost as old as Allen's book, started in 1928 and dedicated to well-designed limited runs. Who knows how many of those cute little editions found their way into bookcases and suitcases and yard sales since they first appeared? I was happy to find mine and re-read this odd, stiffly convinced look at sorting out life. Maybe I'll slip it in a convenient pocket, for future reference.