4ILC COUE 
 
 THE MAN 
 AND HIS WORK 
 
 BY 
 
 IUGH MACNAGHTEN 
 
 Vice-Provost of Eton College 
 
 II^J^^^HI^^^H 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALFORN A AN D EGO 
 
 3 1822 02246 8540 
 
 California 
 Regional 
 acility 
 
 METHUEN & CO. LTD., LONDON 
 
 TWO SHILLINGS NET
 
 LIBRARY
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 
 
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 EMILE COUE 
 
 THE MAN AND HIS WORK
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 ETON LETTERS (1915-1918) 
 THE STORY OF CATALLUS 
 AVE REGINA 
 VERSE ANCIENT AND MODERN
 
 EMILE COUE 
 
 THE MAN AND HIS WORK 
 
 BY 
 
 VICE-PROVOST OF ETON COLLEGE 
 SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 MET! 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET; 
 IDON.
 
 First Published in 1922
 
 TO 
 
 MY FRIEND 
 M. E. C. 
 
 AND HIS SISTER 
 AND MINE
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 DEAR READER, 
 
 Look first upon this picture from Deuteronomy 
 xxviii, 67 : "In the morning thou shalt say, Would 
 God it were even ! and at even thou shalt say, 
 Would God it were morning ! " and then upon this, 
 which I owe to Arthur Benson, from " The Pilgrim's 
 Progress " : " The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper 
 chamber whose window opened towards the sun- 
 rising ; the name of the chamber was Peace, where 
 he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and 
 sang." You may make either picture true for 
 yourself ; it is for you to choose. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 I WISH to thank the editor of "The Times " for his 
 kindness in allowing me to use some part of a 
 former appreciation of M. Cou6, which he published 
 for me on March ayth and 3ist. 
 
 H. M.
 
 Cher Mr. Macnaghten, 
 
 Je serai tres heureux que vous ecriviez le petit 
 livre dont vous m'avez par!6 et j'ajoute que je 
 vous en suis reconnaissant. 
 
 E. Cou 
 LONDRES, le 3 Avril, 1922
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 " That is that which I seek for, even to be rid of this 
 heavy burden, but to get it off myself I cannot, nor is there 
 any man in our country that can take it off my shoulders ; 
 therefore am I going this way as I told you that I may be 
 rid of my burden." " The Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 WHY I WENT TO NANCY 
 
 IT is always difficult to know how best to 
 begin. No sooner had I written these words 
 than I realized that I could hardly have made a 
 more disastrous start ; to talk of difficulty (ask 
 M. Coue) is to court failure, but my blunder is so 
 instructive an example of what we should avoid 
 that I will let it stand. Clearly the easiest way to 
 begin and the best will be to state as briefly as I 
 can the succession of events that led me to Nancy, 
 before I give some account of my experiences there, 
 and then pass to M. Coue"s latest visit to England. 
 A long series of accidents brought me to Nancy. 
 I first heard of auto-suggestion in July, 1921, 
 when somebody casually suggested to me that I 
 should try M. Coue"s method for the cure of 
 insomnia. His name was at the time unfamiliar 
 to me ; and I rejected the suggestion, without a 
 moment's thought. Early in December a friend
 
 x EMILE 
 
 spoke to me of M. Coue and began to explain his 
 method. He had only got as far as the famous 
 formula, Tows les jours a tous points de mie je 
 vais de mieux en mieux, when I interrupted with 
 the rather obvious superficial criticism that I did 
 not see how the repetition of a false statement, 
 made twenty times, would help me, and dismissed 
 the subject. Soon after this I went abroad, in 
 search of sleep, in spite of Horace's warning that 
 " when o'er the world we range, 'tis but our 
 climate not our mind we change," which kept 
 ringing in my ears. In fact I was continually 
 making such harmful suggestions to myself, which 
 were almost invariably confirmed by the event, 
 for at that time I hr.d no idea that to have such 
 thoughts was simply to forge new chains which 
 would make it more and more impossible to escape 
 from the prison-house. In Italy I met a com- 
 passionate lady, to whom I confided my troubles, 
 not knowing that to talk of them was almost 
 inevitably to aggravate them. She lent me 
 Baudoin's book, which I found difficult and not 
 particularly helpful. To take only one instance, 
 it irritated me to find that the law of reversed 
 action was frequently alluded to, but never 
 adequately explained. Consequently, though I 
 managed to finish the book, it taught me little 
 (all my fault, I confess) and gave me little
 
 PRELUDE xi 
 
 encouragement. Then by a mere chance I was 
 introduced to another lady, who, I was told, had 
 been at Nancy and was eager to repay her debt 
 to M. Coue by helping others to share the benefit 
 which she had received from him. I soon proved 
 this to be entirely true. Every day, of her great 
 kindness, she devoted at least an hour to my 
 instruction, and though she found me a most 
 intractable patient she did at least succeed in 
 inspiring me with the desire of seeking M. Coue 
 himself. Indeed I actually looked out trains 
 and should have made the not inconsiderable 
 detour which a visit to Nancy involved had it 
 not been for an accident which made a direct 
 journey to England imperative. After my return 
 I slept no better, and at last I yielded to the 
 kindness of friends who made it easy for me to go 
 to Nancy, and I went. Starting at n a.m. and 
 travelling straight through from London, I reached 
 Nancy at 6.40 a.m. next morning : it would have 
 been possible but undesirable to arrive at 4 a.m. 
 (The return journey may be made in a day, because 
 the trains fit better ; it is possible to leave Nancy 
 at 9 a.m. and to reach Victoria at 10.40 p.m. the 
 same day.) On arriving at the hotel I was in- 
 formed that M. Coue had returned the day before, 
 and that he was to lecture at 9 a.m. in a distant 
 quarter of the town.
 
 EMILE COUE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NANCY 
 " That which we have seen and heard." 
 
 THERE was just time for bath and breakfast ; 
 we were too excited to feel tired, and we 
 were among the first to reach the little cottage con- 
 sisting of one room on the ground floor and one 
 upper room where M. Coue usually sees his patients, 
 or (shall we not say ?) his friends. The meetings 
 are held in the upper room, which is quite small : 
 if used as a dining-room, a table to hold six would 
 be as much as there is room for. As a matter of 
 fact quite twenty-four people are accommodated 
 somehow, either on chairs and camp-stools or on 
 the floor. In addition to the room itself there 
 is a half passage half ante-room, which holds 
 perhaps eight, and this also is usually full. Ven- 
 tilation is a difficulty ; a door must be open so 
 that those in the ante-room may not be excluded ; 
 consequently, to avoid a draught, which people
 
 2 EMILE COUE I 
 
 generally but unwisely imagine to be dangerous, 
 the window is relentlessly shut. M. Coue himself 
 is, of course, thanks to self-mastery, almost 
 indifferent to any atmosphere, stifling or other- 
 wise. I suppose he says to himself, " I shan't 
 mind this, I shan't mind this at all, indeed I shall 
 rather like it," and his mind so readily falls in 
 with the suggestion that he would emerge from the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta itself quite unharmed. 
 The rest of us try to follow in his steps, and some 
 of us are actually surprised at our success in not 
 minding very much the airlessness, and worse 
 than airlessness, of the room ; we have said to 
 ourselves, " This is doing me good," or, if we shrink 
 from such an overstatement of the case, at any 
 rate, " This is doing me no harm " ; if we boggle 
 even at that, at least we can say of the discom- 
 fort, " It is passing," and before we have gabbled 
 this many times it actually passes. "It is 
 passing," as M. Coue reminds us, must be gabbled 
 because it is essential that we should not allow the 
 ambushed opposite thought, " It is not passing," 
 to intrude itself and do the devil's work. By the 
 by, M. Coue's native French is obviously in this 
 instance preferable to English, for $a passe can 
 be gabbled far more effectively than "It is 
 passing." 
 
 And now perhaps the best way will be to give
 
 NANCY 3 
 
 a few details of the different conferences which I 
 attended. A more strangely assorted company 
 it would be hard to find. We seemed at first 
 sight to be separated almost all of us by an im- 
 measurable gulf from one another, yet it soon 
 became obvious that every one wished well to his 
 neighbour ; we all of us seemed to be inspired 
 by one spirit and that spirit was M. Coue's. I 
 remember hearing an English officer in France 
 say once, it was in January, 1919, " Every one 
 helps every one else out here ; one would never 
 think of doing it in England." Well, it was just 
 so in Nancy early in 1922 : every one in M. Coue's 
 presence took a genuine kindly interest in every 
 one else. I was amazed by the goodness which 
 I saw everywhere. It is comparatively easy to 
 mourn with those who mourn ; the difficulty is, 
 especially if you are feeling no better yourself, to 
 rejoice with those who are rejoicing in the gradual 
 return of health ; but in that room every one else 
 managed it, and this all-embracing sympathy 
 and universal goodwill were, I believe, no un- 
 important factors in the improvement which took 
 place day by day in almost every one. Doubtless 
 in many cases what our friends chiefly need for 
 the restoration of health and spirits is a little 
 kindness ; a sympathetic word is generally worth 
 far more than any tonic. But as a rule when we
 
 4 EMILE COUE 
 
 fall ill and still have to go on with our work, we 
 become depressed and depressing ; inevitably 
 we are shunned ; for undeniably we are very 
 poor company, and we are fortunate indeed if 
 we possess any friends whom nothing will alienate, 
 however sorely they are tried. 
 
 In describing my own experiences at Nancy, 
 let me say at once that I witnessed no miraculous 
 cures, but although this disappointed me at the 
 time I now regard it as a positive advantage, 
 because it would be so easy to be biassed and misled 
 by a single exceptional case and consequently to 
 miss, or at least to misinterpret, the whole meaning 
 of M. Coue's work. Beyond doubt there have 
 been not a few instantaneous cures which might 
 be, and probably were, regarded as miracles by 
 the majority of those present at the time, but 
 M. Coue would never be one of this majority ; 
 he is never tired of affirming that he works no 
 miracles, all he claims is that he is able in most 
 cases to help us to cure ourselves. " I cannot 
 help you," he would say, " if you have broken an 
 arm or a leg ; in that case you will go, if you are 
 sensible, to a surgeon ; but I may be able to help 
 you to recover the use of a limb or an eye which 
 from the mere fact of long disuse has ceased to 
 act as a limb or an eye in being." It is true that 
 at times he has seemed to achieve much more
 
 NANCY 5 
 
 than this. A helpless cripple carried into the 
 room has left M. Coue's presence on his own feet, 
 cured and triumphant; but the explanation is 
 simple ; the cripple had long ceased to believe 
 in the possibility of walking and therefore the 
 disbelief had translated itself into a real inability. 
 The moment that he believed M. Coue, who had 
 told him that he had the power of walking, that 
 moment he was able to walk. As he first walked, 
 shouting, " Je marche, je marche," and presently 
 ran round the room, doubtless he seemed to 
 himself a living and walking proof that miracles 
 do happen ; but to M. Coue he presented only 
 one more example of the truth that, what you 
 think, in the sphere of possibilities of course, tends 
 irresistibly to become true for you. At the 
 first conference we were about a dozen English 
 of the upper and upper-middle class and about 
 the same number of French, of whom the majority 
 were poor. As M. Coue goes his round and 
 questions each of those present, one by one, there 
 is plenty of evidence of human suffering in the 
 long but unmonotonous tale of various ills from 
 which the many patients are suffering. Yet 
 almost invariably the pervading tone is one of 
 hopefulness. The sceptic of yesterday is a little 
 less sceptical to-day, in another's eyes despair 
 is changing to a gleam of hope, my nearest neigh-
 
 6 EMILE COUE 
 
 hour slept better last night than on any night 
 during the last ten years ; the woman next to 
 
 him says, " I feel a little better, but ." Here 
 
 M. Coue cuts her short, for " buts " spoil it all. 
 Almost every one was better, and there were no 
 miraculous cures. Some improvement, however, 
 took place before our eyes : one old man, who at 
 first could not raise his arm, ended, thanks to 
 much encouragement, by raining blows on M. 
 Coue's shoulder, though not, I must admit, as 
 vigorously as M. Coue himself would have desired. 
 Another man, with rheumatism in both knees, 
 after a little rubbing by M. Coue and many 
 repetitions of the fa passe formula, found himself 
 able to walk with comparative ease. Any such 
 visible improvement was infectious and we all 
 took courage. When M. Coue has made his 
 round and has said some words to each of us, he 
 tells us to close our eyes, and recites his gospel 
 of health ; we are just to listen without effort ; 
 a wise passiveness is best ; indeed, we may sleep 
 if we will, for our subconscious mind never sleeps 
 and never forgets, and so his words sink in. We 
 are to be very careful to eat slowly and turn our 
 food into a kind of paste before we swallow it ; 
 thus certainly, but only thus, will constipation 
 cease to be. We shall sleep soundly ; our dreams, 
 if we dream, will be pleasant ; troubles and worries
 
 NANCY 7 
 
 will melt away and we shall awake and sing ; 
 there will be no more fears, no more thoughts of 
 unkindness ; shyness and self-consciousness will 
 vanish. And how are we to win this great reward ? 
 Very easily it seems ; without effort. As soon 
 as we nestle on the pillow we are to close our eyes 
 and recite without stress, but just audibly, the 
 well-known formula some twenty times : " Every 
 day in every respect I grow better and better ; " 
 or, if we think that those things are better said 
 in French, " Tous les jours, a tous points de vue, 
 je vais de mieux en mieux." It seems childish, 
 does it not ? It is really childlike, and that is a 
 very different thing. And if we wish we can add 
 the childlike words, " par la grace de Dieu," or 
 " Thank God," and so turn it into a prayer. Does 
 this sound to you more like the Pharisee's prayer 
 than the Publican's ? To me it rather recalls 
 the Samaritan who of the ten healed of leprosy 
 alone returned to give thanks to God. When- 
 ever in the course of his little sermon M. Coue 
 mentions a disability or sickness, from which 
 any one person in particular among his audience 
 is suffering, he approaches that person and touches 
 the part affected. One hardly realizes it as strange 
 that he should remember as he does the ailments 
 of some thirty persons, many of whom he is 
 seeing for the first time. Only very rarely he
 
 8 EMILE COUE 
 
 makes a slip, as when, for instance, he touched a 
 , friend of mine on the thumb that was not gouty, 
 and said that very probably it would soon be 
 like the other. Thank goodness ! he is too 
 intensely human never to make a mistake, and he 
 will, I know, forgive me for hoping that in this 
 particular forecast he was mistaken. He is 
 himself as quick as lightning to take advantage 
 of any mistakes that his patients make in de- 
 scribing their own condition, and his quiet humour 
 is a constant source of delight. Nor are there 
 wanting humorous episodes. For instance, hardly 
 had M. Coue finished speaking of the certain 
 cure of constipation when the sufferer he had 
 been addressing hurried from the room, announc- 
 ing, with mingled surprise and triumph, that the 
 event was going to justify the prediction. These 
 things are said more easily, without offence, in 
 French ; there was only a little ripple of sym- 
 pathetic laughter while M. Coue smiled at the 
 startlingly sudden fulfilment of his promise. 
 Yet always M. Coue is careful to assure his audience 
 " I cure no one " ; all that he offers is his help 
 in teaching others to cure themselves. On Friday 
 there were two lectures in the afternoon, the 
 first by M. Coue himself and the second by his 
 friend and follower M. Rene" de Brabois. Let me 
 quote a single sentence which specially appealed
 
 NANCY 9 
 
 to me from the second lecture. Our friend (we 
 
 feel from the first moment that he also is our 
 
 
 
 friend) is speaking of sleeplessness. How is sleep 
 to be recaptured ? This is his answer : "Si vous 
 faites un mouvement pour 1'attraper, il vous 
 echappera comme un oiseau," i.e., " Make ever so 
 slight a movement to capture sleep and it will 
 escape from you like a bird." It is fatal to call 
 in your will, to make an effort, to determine to go 
 to sleep. If you say " I will go to sleep," imagina- 
 tion will answer, " No, you won't " ; and by a 
 law which knows no varying the will yields to the 
 imagination. You must say, " I am going to 
 sleep," or better say it in French, " Je vais dormir," 
 repeat it very quickly making the sound of a hum- 
 ming bee (comme une abeille qui bourdonne) over 
 and over again, but above all make no effort to 
 sleep. 
 
 The next day the conference was at M. Coup's 
 own house, which is not more than a hundred yards 
 from the two-roomed cottage where we met the 
 day before. There are sixteen of us in the study, 
 but the door is left open and there are seven in 
 the passage outside. First of all, as his custom is, 
 he makes the round of the company, saying a few 
 words to each. There is a girl present who stam- 
 mers ; he tells us how, in his own experience, on 
 seven occasions the patient has been cured of
 
 10 EMILE COUE 
 
 stammering on the spot, though " this," he is 
 careful to add, " is comparatively rare." Then 
 he goes on, " Just the mere sight of me ! that 
 sufficed to frighten away the stammer." M. Coue 
 does not try to be funny, but he is funny. Every- 
 thing of course sounds wittier in French, but there 
 is real humour iu such a question as : " Eh ! bien, 
 qu'est-ce qu'elle dit votre jambe aujourd'hui? " 
 " What does your leg say to-day ? " To return to 
 the patient; she says " I cannot help stammering; " 
 he says, think " I don't stammer any longer " 
 and you will cease to stammer. Just for one 
 moment I thought that " I came, I saw, I con- 
 quered " was to be realized, but it was not to be ; 
 there was an audible improvement, but the girl 
 was not cured on the spot. There was also present 
 another girl who, for twenty years, had been blind 
 in one eye. The blindness was the result of a 
 blow when she was only three years old ; for a 
 time the eye was really blind ; when it recovered, 
 its little mistress had learnt to do without it and 
 therefore never thought of using it, though it was 
 ready to be used. After twenty years, some six 
 weeks before our visit to Nancy, she had come to 
 M. Coue and had been taught to see. The eye 
 which, through no fault of its own, had been idle 
 for twenty years has not yet quite caught up its 
 more active mate, but it was not far behind
 
 NANCY 11 
 
 and has possibly made up the lost ground by 
 now. 
 
 One other circumstance which may seem 
 trivial enough to others, particularly interested 
 me at this conference. All the time that M. Coue 
 was talking a lady translated for the benefit of 
 her neighbour who was ignorant of French. 
 Under ordinary circumstances this would have 
 been wildly irritating, but nobody seemed to mind 
 in the least. Was it because M. Coue" had inspired 
 us all with the idea that we are meant to help one 
 another whether at Nancy or elsewhere ? 
 
 Certainly he tries to infect the despondent with 
 the hopefulness of their neighbours, and not less 
 certainly he contrives to inspire, at least to some 
 extent, the feeling " each for all " among his 
 audience. My own violent prejudices were begin- 
 ning to disappear. I remember being intensely 
 provoked when I read that at the end of M. Coue's 
 little address the patient " opens his eyes and in- 
 variably smiles, with a look of satisfaction and 
 comfort on his face," and I vowed that at any rate 
 there should be one exception to this rule. But 
 the most foolish vows are sometimes broken, and 
 very certainly I broke mine. I think, too, that 
 if I had been told that M. Coue would smoke 
 little cigarettes while he was talking I should 
 have been prepared quite unreasonably (I hate
 
 12 EMILE COUE 
 
 smoking) to take offence ; in fact, he did smoke a 
 good deal and it made no earthly difference. 
 
 Someone remarked to me, " M. Coue likes us a 
 good deal, considering that we are foreigners, but 
 those whom he really loves are the poor." I do 
 not think that he distinguishes between poor and 
 rich in that way. Both will find him equally their 
 friend. Socrates, I suppose, preferred the rich ; 
 the poor had the greater need of Christ, and for 
 that reason, perhaps, may have had His preference. 
 But then there was the rich young man whom 
 He loved. Certainly M. Coue is no respecter of 
 persons. Young and old, rich and poor are 
 equally welcome. Sometimes rather battered 
 specimens of elderly humanity present themselves, 
 but M. Coue seemed hardly less hopeful of age 
 than of youth, and no one was sent empty away. 
 It is never too late to hope for amelioration even 
 if complete cure is impossible. Old age is not a 
 fatal disability : M. Coue makes no secret of his 
 own sixty-five years, but hopes to work harder in 
 the next ten years than even he has ever worked 
 before. It is difficult for those who marvel at his 
 untiring cheerfulness and wit, his boundless sym- 
 pathy, and the triumphant repartees which sweep 
 away the querulous objections of some who seem 
 almost unwilling to be cured ; it is difficult even 
 for those who have often lectured and preached
 
 NANCY 13 
 
 themselves to realize how much it costs to give so 
 lavishly to others. And M. Coue is daily spending 
 himself on each of his audience, asking as his one 
 and only reward that in their own cure they should 
 give him such assistance as they can. 
 
 Very rarely is he disappointed of this most 
 reasonable expectation. There was, however, one 
 young woman who appeared to me intentionally 
 unintelligent. After a while M. Coue reached, I 
 think, the same conclusion and simply left her 
 alone. One man was almost defiantly incredulous, 
 but this man had fought well in the war and 
 naturally that fact would cover a multitude of 
 sins. In any case M. Coue seemed determined to 
 help him in spite of himself, but whether he was 
 successful or not I do not know.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 NANCY OR LONDON ? 
 
 " But above all the warm and joyful thoughts which 
 they had about their own dwelling there with such 
 company." " The Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 I HAVE tried to give the impression which I 
 myself received from the conferences in 186 
 rue Ste- Jeanne d'Arc, and the little cottage in 
 the lane which is just behind it. Naturally I 
 shall be asked "Is it necessary to go to Nancy if 
 M. Coue can be seen in London ? " I answer " It 
 all depends." You may be curable almost at sight 
 or your sickness may be of long standing, deeply 
 ingrained. I am sixty years old and Nancy was 
 a necessity for me : even so it was touch and go. 
 I had wonderful luck in the company of a sister 
 and the presence of a friend, but I came away 
 sleeping no better, perhaps actually worse than 
 before : yet I did not come away without the 
 sure and certain hope of recovery. But you will 
 say, " M. Coue is the only one who really matters 
 and he must always be the same." I do not agree ; 
 surroundings help, and friends help, and M. Coue 
 14.
 
 NANCY OR LONDON? 15 
 
 is a power everywhere, but at Nancy most of all ; 
 inspiring as he is in 20 Grosvenor Gardens, he is 
 far more inspiring in his study at 186 rue Ste- 
 Jeanne d'Arc, and most inspiring of all in the little 
 cottage some 50 yards away across the lane at 
 the back of his own house. Is it not natural that 
 this should be so ? Consider. To go to Nancy 
 at all involves some effort and some expense. 
 Your object in going is to win a new peace or a 
 new something ; your doctor has very likely 
 suggested that you require a change ; vaguely 
 you dream that you are going to have the glorious 
 chance of a fresh start, and with everything new 
 around you there is a greater probability that 
 your dream will come true. Nancy itself is a 
 charming town : very likely your hotel will be 
 in the Place Stanislas, and in spite of some rather 
 fidgety ornamentation the whole effect of the 
 Square is charming. A good tram will take you 
 in less than an hour to the junction of the Marthe 
 and the Moselle ; all these things help. Certainly, 
 as I left the Place Stanislas and took my way 
 past the market-place to the rue Ste- Jeanne d'Arc, 
 distant about two kilometres, I felt a thrill which 
 I can never imagine myself feeling if I had taken 
 the train from Windsor to Paddington and the 
 bus to 20 Grosvenor Gardens. Inevitably, too, 
 M. Coue himself must feel more at home to talk
 
 16 EMILE COUE 
 
 French uninterruptedly than to check the flow 
 of his thoughts and words every other minute 
 while the last half-dozen sentences are being 
 translated into English. Nor is the audience quite 
 as helpful in England as in France. At Nancy 
 there are very poor peasants sitting next to great 
 English ladies, and they all talk together as 
 naturally and simply as if they were old friends : 
 possibly it is a proof of vulgarity in me that this 
 strikes me as unusual ; it ought of course to be 
 the ordinary thing, but is it our English way ? 
 There, too, we have, if not all things, at least one 
 friend in common, who binds us each to each. 
 This might equally be possible in London ; but 
 we do not think it possible, and therefore for us 
 it is not true ; and with the old associations all 
 around us those of us who have learnt to acquiesce 
 in captivity and almost to hug our chains inevitably 
 find it very difficult to leave the prison-house, even 
 though the door be no longer barred.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 M. COU AT ETON 
 
 (Reproduced from the "E.C.C." by kind permission of the Editors) 
 
 MCOUfi reached England on Saturday, 
 March 25, and gave his first lecture, at 
 Eton, on the following day. The School Library 
 was full, perhaps overfull, and yet hardly more 
 than half the boys who applied for places could 
 be admitted, in spite of the announcement that 
 the lecture was to be in French and was to last 
 nearly three times as long as Sunday Private. 
 Some may have doubted whether even M. Coue 
 would be able to hold his audience for so long; 
 but any such doubts were quickly dispelled. A 
 few simple and charming experiments based on 
 the fact that it is impossible to think two things 
 at once proved to us that after clasping your 
 hands you cannot separate them, however much 
 you wish to do so, while thinking all the time 
 " I cannot do it " : you can do just what you 
 think you can do. It follows that if you think 
 you cannot speak without stammering you will 
 continue to stammer, and if you expect not to 
 sleep your expectation will be fulfilled. Virgil 
 meant much the same thing when he said of his 
 17
 
 18 EMILE COTJE 
 
 rowers, who were rapidly gaining on their rivals, 
 " they can because they think they can." How 
 obvious it sounds, and how thrillingly interesting 
 it was, as M. Coue drove his points home, proving 
 that not the will but the imagination is the supreme 
 force : always, however, the first step lies with 
 the will, which before it abdicates must set the 
 imagination working in the right direction. 
 Probably some doubted, and possibly some 
 mocked : certainly, as the ninety minutes all too 
 quickly went by, the audience became more and 
 more inspired by the lecturer, while beauty born 
 of murmuring sound fa-passed into our faces ! 
 Pardon, mesdames, messieurs. Puns are a simple 
 outrage, but seriously why is it that French 
 esprit is so much more charming than English 
 wit ? For a single proof contrast the dull offen- 
 siveness of to take French leave with the light 
 gaiety of s'esquiver d I'anglaise. To return to the 
 lecture. There were no sensational cures : why 
 should there be ? Occasionally they just happen ; 
 but they are really a hindrance to an intelligent 
 appreciation of M. Coue's teaching. Self-mastery 
 based on recognition of the power of the imagina- 
 tion is the thing that matters. Quite unsensa- 
 tional is the truth which M. Coue* brought home 
 to most of us, and it is tlu's : there is no need of 
 miracle, but much need of the simple common
 
 M. COUE AT ETON 19 
 
 sense which is so sadly uncommon. If we eat 
 slowly, if we never worry, if we look on the bright 
 side of things, if our thoughts are sane and whole- 
 some, if we use the childlike formula which he 
 suggests, then indeed we shall be happy children, 
 and every day in every respect we shall be growing 
 better and better. We are just to go on from 
 strength to strength, always rejoicing and never 
 worrying about the morrow perhaps we have 
 read^all this before in another book, but is it any 
 the*worse for that ? Rather we may be thankful 
 that M. Coue working on his own lines has reached 
 very similar conclusions. There is no doubt that 
 he has reached them independently. But, say 
 some, " Life is meant to be difficult and M. Coue 
 tries to make it easy. One ought to feel tired, 
 and M. Coue says himself that he is never tired." 
 Ought we to feel tired ? Are you sure of that ? 
 Anyhow, what M. Coue says of himself is quite 
 true. And why ? Because M. Coue makes a 
 point of going to sleep just when he is on the 
 edge of being tired. " I wish I could," you say ; 
 " / often have to go on working long after I am 
 tired out; and, anyhow, what about the labours 
 of Hercules ? wasn't he tired ? " Listen. Last 
 Sunday M. Coue reached Eton at 12. He lectured 
 from 12.15 to 1.40. He then gave advice to a 
 few who stayed behind to consult him for ten
 
 20 EMILE COUE 
 
 minutes. Lunch in Hall from 2 to 2.30. No, till 
 2.40, for (N.B.) M. Coue reduces his food to a 
 pulp before swallowing it. From 2.45 3.30 he 
 walks to visit a father who wishes to consult him 
 about his little son. Then 3.30 4.15 follows a 
 conference, an address to some twenty people, 
 most of whom are sufferers and wish for help. 
 Then from 4.15 to 4.55 in another room M. Coue 
 talks to and interests and delights some twenty 
 people, mostly boys ; 5 5.55 chapel. From 6 
 to 6.25 he is busy helping two boys who come to 
 consult him, and sends them away full of hopeful- 
 ness and happiness. From 6.30 to 7.5 he visits 
 an Eton house, and talks to half a dozen boys. 
 Remember, he is explaining a new and unfamiliar 
 subject, and that requires concentration, does it 
 not ? Dinner from 7.15 to 7.45, and at 8 M. Coue 
 is on his way back to London because a sufferer 
 there has been promised his help, and he never 
 fails anyone. His host, who is very tired, though 
 he has only been looking on and listening with 
 delight, asks him, " But are you not tired ? " 
 " Comment, fatigue ? " answers M. Coue ; " je 
 ne suis jamais fatigue." And the amazing thing is 
 that this startling paradox is the simple truth. The 
 explanation is this. You can always think you are 
 not tired, and, if you have complete self-mastery, 
 always it becomes true for you. Always within the
 
 M. COUE AT ETON 21 
 
 limits of what is humanly possible bien entendu. 
 There may come a call, when on the edge of being 
 tired you have just gone to sleep, and, if it come, 
 you are bound to obey though you pass the boun- 
 dary of very nearly being tired. Naturally there 
 must be some limit to endurance, and you will 
 always avoid over-stepping it if you possibly can : 
 always, unless duty calls you : then you will obey. 
 No one can afford to laugh at a system which 
 teaches such lessons and produces such results. 
 One word more. Now, as in the days of Thucy- 
 dides, things quickly win their way to the fabulous. 
 Two instances will suffice. A master here is re- 
 ported in the papers as cured : what he actually said 
 was that he had ceased to feel pain at the moment. 
 Again, on Tuesday evening the papers reported the 
 startling cure of a paralysed man : what he himself 
 said was that he had on previous occasions been able, 
 now and then, to do quite as much as he had just 
 done in M. Coue's presence. " What truth was ever 
 told the second day ? " Even in the second minute 
 the truth is often perverted beyond recognition. 
 But after all we have not yet thanked M. Coue". 
 We do thank him very gratefully, but the grati- 
 tude which he will value most will be not the 
 homage of our^lips, but the daily growth in faith, 
 hope, and that all-embracing charity of which he 
 is himself the most illustrious example.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 M. COU IN LONDON 
 
 " Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 IT was inevitable that I should wish to hear 
 M. Cou6 in London, although, or, rather, 
 perhaps, because I had so lately returned from 
 Nancy. Would the conferences in Grosvenor 
 Gardens produce anything like the same effect 
 as those in the rue Ste- Jeanne d'Arc ? That was 
 what I wanted to discover. We left Eton early 
 and walked across the park from Paddington 
 (which is always a delightful thing to do), for we 
 were determined to give London every possible 
 chance. We arrived half an hour before the time 
 fixed for the second conference, but people were 
 already gathering and it was quite interesting to 
 stand and watch. At 11.30 the first conference 
 was over and there was considerable excitement 
 as the inner room emptied ; it was noised abroad 
 that a paralysed man had walked. The next 
 day we read in the papers that " The story of a 
 paralysed man who had recovered power over 
 
 22
 
 M. COUE IN LONDON 28 
 
 his limbs was quoted excitedly in many parts of 
 Wigmore Hall." Actually the patient said, not 
 in the presence of M. Coue, but afterwards in the 
 ante-room, "Sometimes I can do things and some- 
 times I can't. M. Coue" did not help me to do 
 more than I have sometimes done myself before." 
 M. Coue" of course did not hear this said, he had 
 seen only the great advance which his patient 
 had made in his presence. Consequently, there 
 was a slight misunderstanding, no misinterpreta- 
 tion. For M. Coue* always faces the facts and is 
 much more likely to depreciate than to exaggerate 
 his own success. Before long all the ticket-holders 
 had passed into the inner room and the second 
 conference had begun. There were about thirty 
 of us (I did not actually count) in a room which 
 was slightly larger and very much loftier than 
 the little parlour at Nancy ; something too of 
 the same spirit, due to M. Coue's influence, 
 prevailed ; people spoke freely of their troubles 
 and were genuinely anxious to help one another ; 
 in particular one lady who asked to be enabled 
 to conquer her fits of crossness won the sympathy 
 of us all. But something, inevitably I think, was 
 lacking. It costs much more (not only in money) 
 to go to Nancy, and the reward is greater in 
 proportion to the greater cost. If you have been 
 obeying wrong auto-suggestions for nearly sixty
 
 24 EMILE COUE 
 
 years and bad habits have become ingrained, you 
 had better go to Nancy should it be possible. 
 That will give you all the chances, and probably 
 you will need them all. A young man or a young 
 woman may very likely get the help they need 
 from M. Cone*, in a few minutes, anywhere. One 
 such, an old Etonian, writes to me after a single 
 short talk with M. Coue, " I cannot tell you how 
 much better I feel and how much more cheerful. 
 I slept so well last night that I was half an hour 
 late for breakfast this morning : I hope soon to 
 be able to return to work. No words can ade- 
 quately express my gratitude." 
 
 I wished to attend one public meeting at 
 Wigmore Hall, and the kindness of Miss Richardson 
 enabled me to do so. I received her telegram just 
 as I was sitting down to lunch ; by missing it and 
 running for a fly I reached Slough with two minutes 
 to spare and Wigmore Hall just five minutes 
 before the lecture began. It was in English and, 
 though M. Coue* speaks English far more distinctly 
 than I speak French, he was not audible to one- 
 third of those present, and their disappointment, 
 though silent, could, in some mysterious way, be 
 felt. Quite apart from this, French well spoken 
 is a very lovable thing : inevitably there is a 
 comparative absence of attractiveness in laboured 
 English, for which even the lecturer's smile and
 
 M. COUE IN LONDON 25 
 
 unfailing charm could not wholly atone. All 
 M. Coue's experiments were brilliantly successful, 
 yet the lecture itself just missed being a triumphant 
 success and a few among the audience left before 
 the close. But after the lecture it was most 
 moving to see many men and women crowding 
 to the stage in the hope of winning one personal 
 word from M. Coue". My thoughts went back to 
 the day when the sick were brought into the streets 
 "that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might 
 overshadow some of them." M. Coue", though 
 shortly due at St. Dunstan's, did all that was 
 possible to satisfy them. One nobly importunate 
 nurse, regardless of herself and anxious only to 
 win some medicinal word for the patient under her 
 charge, had her reward, I am thankful to say, in 
 seeing him cheered in soul and comforted. But 
 at last the door had to be shut, and gradually the 
 few who still lingered outside turned and went. 
 Then we too left the hall and crossed the road to 
 call on Mr. Ernest Debenham, who gave us tea 
 and took us in his motor to St. Dunstan's ; and 
 on the way there I had a very pleasant surprise, 
 for suddenly M. Coue said to me, " I feel as if I 
 had known you for forty years." And I, for my 
 part, could have answered truly, that I felt as if 
 my own life had begun anew just seven weeks ago 
 at 9 a.m., when I saw M. Cou for the first time
 
 26 EMILE COUfi 
 
 in the little upper room at Nancy. I hope and 
 pray that to such a feeling fa passe does not apply. 
 The room at St. Dunstan's held probably not half 
 as many people as Wigmore Hall ; it was a simpler 
 place with noble and tender associations, and here 
 for the first time I recovered the old feeling of 
 " each for all " which I used to have at Nancy. 
 I had to leave just before the end, but as I ran 
 through the sleet to catch a taxi I felt that this 
 last glimpse of M. Coue's work had been almost 
 the best of all. It is no wonder that I had this 
 feeling as I came from such a gathering. It was 
 " asking both his eyes of him," said Cromwell of 
 some impossible demand, and these men had made 
 that very sacrifice.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SUB-CONSCIOUS SELF 
 
 A. " The outcropping of the Unconscious." Baudoin. 
 
 B. " And none but he who watches them from birth, 
 
 The Genius, guardian of each child of earth, 
 Born when we're born, and dying when we die, 
 Now storm, now sunshine, knows the reason why." 
 
 C. " The Little Minister." J. M. Barrie. 
 
 SOME of my readers will think and say 
 that my first quotation is nonsense. I 
 know that is not the fact, but I entirely agree with 
 them in thinking that such jargon is a hindrance 
 rather than a help to ordinary men and women. 
 
 The second quotation is the standard passage 
 (i.e., our main source of information) on that 
 elusive and mysterious person whom the Romans 
 called the Genius. What exactly do we learn 
 from this passage about this Genius ? First, he 
 is always with us from birth and dies with us ; 
 secondly, he rules our life ; thirdly, he is so im- 
 portant as to be called (in the original) the God of 
 human nature ; fourthly, he dies when we die ; 
 fifthly, he is liable to change his expression ; 
 27
 
 28 EMILE COUE 
 
 lastly, sometimes he looks bright (literally white) 
 and sometimes black. If all this is true, our Genius 
 must surely be a very remarkable person and we 
 ought to know something about him. What fun 
 it would be if the Genius, of whom Horace was 
 writing some years before Christ was born, 
 should prove to be an alias of the very modern 
 sub-conscious self. Let us look a little closer. 
 What is it that we know about this sub-conscious 
 self ? Who is he, and what is his work ? I am 
 far from being an authority on the subject, but 
 this is how it was explained to me, and it is at least 
 a simple and intelligible explanation. Clearly we 
 do not consciously direct the various processes on 
 which our life depends : we do not look after our 
 digestion or our breathing. If we take thought 
 for either of these we shall make a sad mess of it, 
 but, if we do not take thought for these things, 
 who does ? Very certainly someone is busy 
 looking after them, and on the whole he does his 
 work well, especially when we are young. If he 
 does his work badly we suffer at once because 
 then everything inside us begins to go wrong ; 
 hence come gout, constipation, insomnia, in short 
 the whole miserable crowd of sicknesses. The 
 obvious way is to consult the doctor, and it is often 
 a very good way. Never forget that if you have 
 broken anything it is the only way. The only
 
 THE SUB-CONSCIOUS SELF 29 
 
 way ; but you can help or hinder to any extent 
 by looking on the bright or the dark side of things. 
 Is it not delightfully simple ? But some people 
 dislike simple remedies as unworthy of their 
 dignity and prefer a doctor's bill. Naaman, for 
 instance, you will remember, was indignant at 
 the thought of bathing in Jordan, not because it 
 is a muddy, rocky torrent (that would have been 
 reasonable enough), but because to bathe in Jordan 
 after all the trouble he had taken seemed to him so 
 ludicrous an anti-climax. Always then remember 
 that there are some ills which you can cure for 
 yourself without expense far better than anyone 
 else can cure them for you at vast expense ; and 
 never forget that even with the best London 
 doctor at your bedside there is still a great deal 
 that you can do to help yourself and him. Con- 
 stipation, gout, insomnia you can cure without 
 any help at all, if only in the first place you will be 
 sensible and law-abiding (Nature's Laws are not to 
 be broken with impunity), and if in the second 
 place you can manage your unconscious self and 
 enable him to do his work. (If this sounds rather 
 like Alice in Wonderland, it is none the worse for 
 that.) Now, luckily, this unconscious self is most 
 anxious to please you ; he is also very impression- 
 able, and at every moment is influenced by you, 
 so that if you say or even think, " I am ill," un-
 
 30 EMILE COUE 
 
 fortunately for you, he always believes you, and 
 then things all go wrong, just as, when you said 
 or rather thought, " I am quite well," everything, 
 thanks to him, went on quite well inside you. 
 Never say then or think that everything is all 
 wrong or that you are hopelessly tired, or anything 
 dismal of any kind ; if you do, your little servant, 
 the sub-conscious, will overhear you and take your 
 word for it, and hurry round to tell the nerves 
 and veins, discouraged and discouraging, and 
 then everything will go wrong indeed, and the 
 worst of it will be that you will have thoroughly 
 deserved your fate. Of course it is not really fate 
 at all, but just your own fault, your own most 
 grievous fault ; and you are in fact the most 
 miserable sinner, only you must never say or think 
 so, for if you do you will discourage him all the 
 more. And I say this not unmindful of our 
 Church's Litany. We shall almost have won the 
 battle as soon as we have realized that " the 
 fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in our- 
 selves," therefore think of Barrie and the stars. 
 Sursum corda et caudas, i.e. " up with your hearts 
 and your tails," but it sounds much funnier 
 in Latin. The joke is not mine, worse luck ; it 
 belongs to a great historian who lives at Oxford. 
 But I give it to you, and I must add just this, 
 I cannot bring myself to talk of the outcropping of
 
 THE SUB-CONSCIOUS SELF 81 
 
 the sub-conscious (or unconscious) self ; I do so 
 love the little words. So let us borrow three little 
 golden words which Barrie will never miss from 
 his inexhaustible treasury and for the future talk, 
 not of the sub-conscious self, but of " The Little 
 Minister." You won't mind, dear Barrie, will 
 you ?
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 ON SOME STUMBLING BLOCKS 
 
 " Every morning before rising and every evening as 
 soon as you are in bed, you must shut your eyes, so as 
 to concentrate your attention, and repeat twenty times 
 consecutively, moving your lips (that is indispensable) 
 and counting mechanically on a string with twenty knots 
 in it, the following phrase, " Every day in every respect I 
 am getting better and better.' " 
 
 T TNDOUBTEDLY these words have proved 
 ^-^ a stumbling-block to many ; we seem to 
 have passed from the world of common sense into 
 the fairyland of charms and incantations. But 
 is it really so ? Consider. I am going to be 
 supremely bold and to speak for M. Cou6. I 
 have never asked him about this, so I alone am 
 responsible for the explanation ; but I have no 
 doubt whatever that he would smile approval. 
 I say then that it is not indispensable to repeat 
 twenty times " Every day in every respect I am 
 getting better and better," much less to move 
 your lips or shut your eyes, if, without any of 
 these external aids, you can put yourself into the 
 right condition of mind just before you go to sleep. 
 What is indispensable is that just before you fall 
 32
 
 ON SOME STUMBLING BLOCKS 83 
 
 asleep your thoughts should be full of health and 
 happiness, because in that case your unconscious 
 self will continue to have such thoughts all the 
 night long, and then at morning you will " awake 
 and sing." And on waking it is indispensable 
 that your first thoughts should be of health and 
 happiness, because a good start is all important 
 for a good day. If then you can achieve these 
 results just by thinking, without the help of 
 formulae and moving lips and closed eyes, if in 
 fact you are a very superior person, M. Cou6 will 
 not grudge you your superiority. But the rest of 
 us will find M. Coup's is the easiest and safest way, 
 especially as absence of effort is indispensable. 
 We shall therefore, as good children, continue 
 saying " Every day in every respect I am getting 
 better and better," though we shall not fail to 
 realize as sane men and women that it is the 
 condition of mind and not the repetition of 
 formulae which is responsible for the daily im- 
 provement. 
 
 ON SOME PASSAGES IN ENGLISH 
 POETRY 
 
 Can we derive any illustration of M. Coup's 
 views from modern English poetry ? Already in 
 his delightful way " Mr. Punch " has pointed out
 
 84 EMILE COU 
 
 that we may find it necessary to rewrite many 
 passages, and it is surely worth our while to con- 
 sider the question seriously, because it will help 
 us to discover whether we really understand 
 M. Coup's yiew. First, then, let us take "The 
 Grammarian's Funeral." It cannot, I think, be 
 denied that the paradoxical truth of Browning's 
 noble lines, 
 
 " This high man aiming at a million 
 Misses a unit," 
 
 will, in M. Coup's view, cease to be true at all 
 unless we are careful to make the necessary 
 qualifications. It remains indeed true that we 
 shall hardly fail to jump a foot or two, if we wish 
 to do so, and it remains even more certainly true 
 that we shall never jump to the rainbow's edge, 
 however much we may desire it. But on the other 
 hand should we aim at jumping twenty feet we 
 shall have a better chance of achieving this than we 
 shall have of jumping ten or five feet, or even a 
 single foot, if we are absolutely convinced that we 
 are incapable of such a modest achievement. 
 For, if we really believe that we are unable to jump 
 even the millionth part of an inch, our belief will 
 translate itself into reality, and we shall remain 
 rooted to the spot, unable to jump at all. So let 
 us be the high man (if we believe Browning to be 
 right in his preference for the high man) and aim
 
 ON SOME STUMBLING BLOCKS 85 
 
 at a million ; for after all (if we take M. Coue"s 
 word), provided the thing lies within the limits of 
 what is humanly possible, we shall not miss it. 
 Next let us take for our consideration Henley's 
 glorious poem, " Invictus." You will remember 
 that it begins 
 
 " Out of the night that covers me. 
 Black as the pit . . ." 
 
 (Here let me say that I have no fear of your making 
 the blunder which was once actually made by a 
 boy in my division, who thought that " black as 
 the pit " referred not to " the night," but to 
 " me," and that the writer was a negro.) A little 
 later came the fine words, 
 
 " Under the bludgeonings of chance 
 My head is bloody, but unbowed." 
 
 That is the spirit of the whole poem it is a 
 defiance of Fortune, a challenge flung in the teeth 
 of Fate. And it ends with the words, 
 
 " I am the master of my fate, 
 I am the captain of my soul," 
 
 which none of us can readwithoutathrill. Butwhat 
 will be M. Coue"s verdict on this poem ? Clearly 
 he will say of the last two lines that they are an 
 epitome of his own teaching ; but on the other 
 hand it is not less clear that he will question the 
 necessity for the " bloody head," and affirm
 
 36 EMILE COUE 
 
 that the blackest night will, if we think that it 
 will, break out into stars. 
 
 Let me give you one more example taken from 
 the best-known poem of the best-known living 
 poet, Mr. -Rudyard Kipling. I have always 
 
 loved and admired " If ". I have kept it 
 
 framed in my room ; but I have always regarded 
 it as an impossibly high ideal, a mere counsel of 
 perfection. And suddenly, only the other day, 
 I realized that I had seen and spoken to and 
 known the man whom Mr. Kipling foresaw. M. 
 Coue, under just such circumstances as the poet 
 describes, has kept his head; he has trusted 
 himself when others laughed at him; he has 
 waited for recognition till he was over sixty ; he 
 hasn't lied ; he hasn't hated ; he hasn't looked 
 too good or talked too wise. I heard him say of 
 himself, " I am not a very clever fellow," at St. 
 Dunstan's, only a few days ago. He has talked 
 with crowds in Wigmore Hall and elsewhere. 
 Virtue has gone out of him, but he hasn't lost it 
 (though that is not quite what the poet meant) ; 
 he has dined at the houses of two ambassadors 
 on two successive days, which is nearer than most 
 of us ever get to walking with kings ; very cer- 
 tainly he has not lost the common touch. (This 
 last sentence sounds vulgar, and I will to erase 
 it, but I think it apposite, and therefore keep it,
 
 ON SOME STUMBLING BLOCKS 37 
 
 if only as one more proof that Imagination always 
 triumphs over Will.) 
 
 He still fills " the unforgiving minute with 
 sixty seconds' worth of distance run," and is 
 never out of breath ; assuredly " the earth and 
 everything that's in it " belongs to the man who 
 looks upon the whole world as his parish and 
 who else is this, in our days, but M. Coue ? It 
 all agrees exactly, except just these four lines 
 which I have omitted and left to the end on 
 purpose. 
 
 " If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
 
 To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
 And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
 
 Except the Will which says to them ' Hold on ! ' " 
 
 You will realize at once, if you have understood 
 this little book, why this could never be said of 
 or by M. Coue. It is magnificent, certainly, to 
 say it, but it is not the best or the surest way of 
 winning the battle of life. Rather, if to the very 
 end you can keep your heart and sinew, and the 
 Will to think that there is Everything in you still, 
 you will achieve at less cost greater results, and 
 you will not be less heroic if (should there never 
 come to you an imperative call to die for others) 
 you live on, very happily, for others as well as for 
 yourself, and, when the time comes at long last for 
 dying, die in that happiness. 
 4
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 M. COU IN HIS RELATION TO 
 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 " He that is not against us is for us." St. Luke ix. 30 
 
 SOME people regard M. Coue as the founder 
 of a new religion. It is a mistake. M. Coue* 
 is the apostle of common sense ; he is not intro- 
 ducing a new religion or any substitute for religion ; 
 he would say to us, " Be Protestants or Catholics, 
 be Bhuddists or Mohammedans, be what you will : 
 it does not concern me whether you are zealots 
 or Freethinkers : I only desire that all of you, from 
 every point of view, Catholic, Nonconformist, or Ag- 
 nostic, may grow daily better and better. ' ' In spite 
 of this no one can know much of M. Coue" with- 
 out being conscious of some very obvious affinities 
 between him and the Founder of Christianity. 
 Both have a message for the sick ; both labour 
 for others, asking for no reward except the pleasure 
 that comes from doing kindnesses ; both give a 
 new meaning and a new life to old phrases ; both 
 go wherever they are invited, making no distinc- 
 tions ; both enjoy the simple good things of life ; 
 38
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY 39 
 
 both have a message ; both believe that message 
 to be the truth ; both are full of humour, full of 
 compassion ; and both arouse intense enthusiasm. 
 Finally, Christ attributed comparatively slight 
 importance to miracles, and M. Coue" says expressly 
 " there is no miracle at all." It is true that when 
 a paralytic is cured on the spot, when he rushes 
 to the window of the little upper room in Nancy, 
 when he shouts to the people who are gathering 
 for the next conference in the courtyard below, 
 " Je marche, je marche," our thoughts go back 
 nearly two thousand years to the beautiful gate 
 of the Temple where a certain man, lame from his 
 mother's womb, at Peter's word, leaping up, 
 " stood and walked and entered with them into 
 the Temple, walking and leaping and praising 
 God." But the resemblance between the New 
 Testament miracles and the work of M. Coue" is 
 superficial, the distinction fundamental. I do not 
 know, though I think I know, what M. Cou6 would 
 say about the passage I have just quoted : of 
 the paralytic cured at Nancy every one knows 
 that he has said it was no miracle ; indeed for 
 M. Coue", as for Matthew Arnold, miracles do not 
 exist. The cures which are so astonishing as to 
 seem miraculous are everyday occurrences. The 
 miracles of Christ as reported in the Gospels, 
 whether we accept or reject them, stand on an
 
 40 EMILE COUE 
 
 entirely different footing, and cannot be explained 
 away in the sense in which this particular miracle 
 of Acts iii might be explained away, and in 
 which M. Coue is himself the first to explain away 
 his own miracles. If we accept as truth the 
 evidence of the Gospels, so much the better for 
 us ; if we cannot accept it as truth, we can at 
 worst illustrate by the growth of misrepresentation 
 in those days the exaggerations or distortions 
 which are now daily giving us fables in place of 
 facts, in spite of M. Coue's own devotion to the 
 truth. This process of distortion is not of to-day 
 or yesterday. Look for a moment at the chapter 
 in the Acts which precedes the miracle which we 
 have been discussing. You will find a flagrant 
 instance of distortion there : read Chapter II, 
 verses 1-13, as they are always read in church, 
 without a word of comment, as a record of histori- 
 cal fact ; what nonsense it is ! The gift of tongues 
 apparently conferred on the Apostles, the power 
 of speaking in some dozen languages of which 
 they were hitherto completely ignorant. This is 
 indeed a miracle for miracle's sake, a thing to make 
 men and women gape with admiration. And all 
 for nothing. The Apostles, of course, needed 
 only one language, for the knowledge of Greek 
 would take them everywhere ; the other eleven 
 languages they might forget at their leisure and
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY 41 
 
 be none the worse, if only they kept their Greek. 
 Besides, St. Paul who knew the facts tells us all 
 about the gift of tongues, which, by the by, he 
 rather depreciates. No wonder, since to speak with 
 tongues was to use a cento of shreds and patches 
 of speech with so little distinction in the sounds 
 that the performance, as St. Paul tells the Corin- 
 thians, was likely to strike the ordinary man as 
 destitute of decency and order. " Will they not 
 say that you are mad ? " Of course they will ; 
 in fact they did, mad or mad-drunk, or " These 
 are not drunken," St. Peter remonstrates, " as 
 you suppose." The explanation given in Acts 
 is ludicrous. Bracket, or, better, erase five and 
 a half verses from " because that every man 
 heard them speak in his own language " in the 
 middle of verse 6 down to the end of verse n, 
 and then you have a perfectly reasonable story 
 which agrees with St. Paul's account and we are 
 quit of a wild and wanton miracle. Yet these 
 same five and a half verses are actually read in 
 every church as gospel (or rather epistle) truth 
 without any apology (defence is out of the question), 
 without even a word of explanation, although 
 every thinking man and woman in the congre- 
 gation must know the interpolation to be non- 
 sense, for of course the offending verses must have 
 been interpolated. If St. Luke wrote them, when
 
 42 EMILE COUE 
 
 he might for asking have had the true account from 
 St. Paul, he was a careless third-rate author, 
 whereas in fact he belongs to the little company of 
 great historians. Further, if this is not an inter- 
 polation, it follows that the early chapters of Acts, 
 before the author became an eye-witness, are not 
 merely comparatively, but almost absolutely, 
 valueless as evidence. Incidentally what are 
 we to say of the annual infliction of this absurdity 
 on yearly dwindling congregations ? Surely it 
 is the assumption that the church-going public 
 will stand anything, which explains, in part, why 
 it is that year by year the congregations dwindle. 
 But will my readers stand this long digression ? 
 Perhaps they may, if it helps them to see how 
 easily the truth about M. Coue" may be distorted. 
 When once they have realized this they will not 
 lightly be misled into believing that miracles 
 have not had their day ; rather they will sift 
 every story and, if themselves present, they will 
 wisely discount the almost inevitable enthusiasm 
 which leads the sufferer, who is being temporarily 
 relieved, to think, and perhaps to say, that he has 
 been miraculously cured. 
 
 Have we any right to ask what view M. Coue 
 himself takes of the miracles of Christ ? We 
 may, I think, without offence conjecture that 
 he would say, " I am so busy with the work which
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY 48 
 
 I believe I was sent into the world to do that I 
 really have no time to study the evidence for and 
 against Christ's miracles." (This, by the by, would 
 be not unlike the answer which Socrates made, 
 when Phaedrus asked him, " Do you believe 
 these tales ? " "I might give," he answered, 
 " a rationalizing explanation, but such an ex 
 planation would require much labour and much 
 ingenuity, and I have really no time for such 
 enquiries.") And some future day some dis- 
 ciple of M. Coue, less wise, less busy, and rasher 
 far, may rush in and answer that the miracles of 
 Christ are no miracles : they can all be explained 
 away quite naturally. Blind men were cured, just 
 as a girl blind of one eye was cured at Nancy ; 
 lame men walked, just as the paralysed man at 
 Nancy walked ; the miracles of feeding can be 
 explained quite as easily in a slightly different 
 way. Christ said to the multitude, " Imagine 
 you are not hungry, imagine you have just had 
 supper." They used their imagination at his 
 word and felt that he had fed them. And so on. 
 The raising of Lazarus is to be explained as Renan 
 explained it. And so on. And what shall we 
 answer ? " Best be still," as Mr. Arnold counsels ; 
 or, if our silence is liable to be misinterpreted, may 
 we not answer this ? The miracles have little 
 importance ; Christ Himself set small store upon
 
 44 EMILE COUE 
 
 them in comparison with His words. The things 
 that matter are the Sermon on the Mount, the 
 parable of the Prodigal Son, the story of the 
 woman taken in adultery. The man born blind, 
 though his eyes were opened by a miracle, did 
 not believe in the Son of God till Jesus talked 
 with him. Then he said, " Lord, I believe." And 
 he worshipped Him." If you ask me whether 
 I believe in Christ's miracles, I might answer that 
 I do not know. I prefer to say that " nothing 
 is impossible with God," and to add that " I will 
 take Christ's word, if I can be certain that it is 
 Christ's word, for anything."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ON " EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING " 
 
 " Here had been, mark, the general in chief, 
 Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, 
 Doing the King's work all the dim day long." 
 
 How it strikes a contemporary. Browning. 
 
 THERE can be no doubt as to what is meant 
 by the words " for nothing." M. Coue" 
 spends himself freely on others, and asks nothing 
 in return. But what is meant by " everything " ? 
 Once again, and for the last time, everything means 
 all that is humanly possible. But many things 
 which seemed yesterday impossible are known to 
 be possible to-day, and there may be even wider 
 possibilities to-morrow. So we are gratified in 
 hoping for almost anything in the way of cure. 
 Nothing is too good to be true, but miracles do 
 not happen. It would, as far as we know, be a 
 miracle, if new teeth were to grow, in middle age, 
 to replace the old. It would not be a miracle 
 if your hair were to grow thicker instead of 
 thinner, thanks to auto-suggestion. Certainly 
 it is much more likely to happen, if you believe it 
 will happen, than if you use the latest hair-restorer. 
 45
 
 46 EMILE COUE 
 
 All diseases which are due to the imagination, 
 such as neurasthenia, are curable. Paralysis 
 of one limb is also curable, i.e. when the sufferer 
 thinks he has no power to use his limbs, and only 
 for that reason cannot use them. Constipation is 
 easily cured, and so in most cases is sleeplessness ; 
 gout, arthritis, and neuritis can be cured if they 
 have not become inveterate. But, above all, 
 such crushing disabilities as stammering, shyness, 
 and self-consciousness vanish in a moment as 
 soon as the principle of auto-suggestion is once 
 realized. Many boys and girls, and many men 
 and women, have suffered agony outside the 
 drawing-room door ; at last in sudden desperation 
 they have turned the handle, to burst in looking 
 and feeling awkward and unhappy. Alas ! it 
 is all too likely that the same sad scene will be 
 again enacted in their dreams. And the pity of 
 it is that all this suffering is so easily avoidable. 
 Just say to yourself, " I shan't be shy ; why 
 should I be shy ? Of course I shan't be shy ; 
 I shall like talking and making myself useful." 
 Then indeed you will not fail to like it, and very 
 certainly you will be liked. For it is in mortals 
 to command success, and (best of all) to help, 
 as M. Coue" day by day is helping, others also to 
 succeed.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 M. COUE 
 
 MOST people come to realize sooner or later 
 that the only reward worth winning is the 
 love of others, and lament that they have made the 
 discovery too late. Perhaps only women have 
 ever realized that to be loved is comparatively 
 unimportant and that to love others is the only 
 peiiect happiness. Only women ? There is at 
 least one exception to every rule, and M. Coue 
 seems to have divined from the first that loving 
 is its own reward. Rich and poor, bad and good, 
 to him they are all men and women, and if they 
 need his help he gives it to them, without dis- 
 tinction, in his all-embracing charity. This is 
 the true source of his infectious happiness. 
 Consequently riches are to him simply negligible 
 as a factor in well-being ; and doubtless " it is more 
 blessed to give than to receive " has never seemed 
 to him a startling paradox. Praise is to most of 
 us the best of tonics. I will not say that praise 
 leaves him cold, because he is never cold, but I 
 will say that even the world-wide tribute of 
 47
 
 48 EMILE COUE 
 
 praise, which he has lately won, has been utterly 
 powerless to affect his inalienable simplicity. 
 Doubtless some of this praise has been injudicious ; 
 probably I am an illustration of this myself. 
 M. Coue has reason to ask to be delivered from the 
 exaggerations and misinterpretations of some of 
 his friends. And, just as Wilkes was never a 
 Wilkite, so it is equally true that M. Coue 
 is not a Coueite. Possibly all that M. Coue 
 has taught us may have been taught (though 
 I do not myself believe it) by others before, 
 certainly " They can because they think they 
 can " is as old as Virgil. But, though the 
 truth may have hovered on the minds and lips 
 of men before, it is M. Coue" who has first revealed 
 it simply and convincingly ; and it is a revelation 
 which has helped many and will help many more 
 to an almost unbelievable degree. Some people 
 resent the abdication of the will. " Oh, well for 
 him whose will is strong " sounds so manly and 
 magnificent. But as, a matter of fact the will 
 does not abdicate until the imagination has in 
 obedience to the will been started in the right 
 direction. If the imagination can do the rest, 
 what sense is there in the will interfering any more ? 
 Point the rifle and pull the trigger of course, 
 but surely it will be unwise to try and guide the 
 bullet with your hand ! And even if things are
 
 M. COUE 49 
 
 made easy for us, why complain ? There will 
 always be difficulties enough. We need not 
 rewrite the old Greek proverb, " The lovely things 
 are difficult," even if the rough places become 
 a little smoother for Love and Life to climb ; 
 rather as we win higher heights with lighter 
 hearts we shall feel that we owe to M. Coue the 
 wider view, and, if we fail to reach the summit, 
 it will be Mount Everest and no meaner height 
 which we shall have failed to climb. 
 
 Wishing may be idle, but at worst it does no 
 harm, so let me end with a wish, or rather, since 
 wishing costs nothing, with two wishes : I wish, 
 then, that if M. Coue comes back to England in 
 the autumn it may be my good fortune to go with 
 him to Westminster Abbey and to show him the 
 words on John Wesley's memorial tablet, " I look 
 upon the whole world as my parish." And now 
 comes the real wish. It is that M. Cou may think, 
 as he reads the words, which have been with good 
 reason applied to himself, only of John Wesley : 
 that will be the crowning proof of unselfconscious- 
 ness ; and I have good hope that my wish may 
 be realized, for of M. Coue nothing is too unself- 
 conscious to be true. And, incidentally, I hope 
 that after that we may lunch together at the 
 Deanery with my old Eton fag master and his 
 wife. And my second wish is that on another
 
 50 EMILE COUE 
 
 day we may go to London's great Cathedral with 
 another old Etonian Dean for our guide and 
 friend, who will point to the words, " Si monu- 
 mentum quaeris circumspice " ("If you ask for 
 his memorial look around you") as we stand 
 together under the noble dome which bears witness 
 to the justice of that epitaph. Noble indeed 
 is the memorial that Wren has left behind him, 
 but there is another kind of memorial nobler still, 
 a memorial wrought not in stone or brass but in 
 the hearts of living men and women ; and such 
 is the monument which M. Coue is daily build- 
 ing for himself. And now, since all good things 
 are three, as I learnt long ago from a beloved 
 German lady, and since love and not hatred is 
 the final goal, let me end with three words taken 
 from the book which I believe M. Coue read for 
 the first time a year ago, but which all his life 
 long he has been illustrating, just these three 
 words : " The Beloved Physician." Certainly 
 there is one and doubtless there are many who, 
 whenever they hear these words read, will think 
 of him.
 
 ENVOI 
 
 DEAR READER, 
 
 You and I have both set out on the same 
 Pilgrim's Progress. I myself have always been 
 Mr. Dispondency; I wonder if you have ever 
 been Mr. Timorous or Miss Much-afraid! If 
 you have, do listen with me to Mr. Great-Heart 
 and Valiant-for-Truth talking together; it is 
 lovely to hear them, because it is not only talk ; 
 they are really just like that in themselves. 
 
 Great-Heart : " And did none of these things discourage 
 you ? " 
 
 Valiant-for-Truth : " No, they seemed but as so many 
 nothings to me." 
 
 Great-Heart : " How came that about ? " 
 
 Valiant-for-Truth : " Why, I still believed what Mr. 
 Tell-True had said, and that carried me beyond all." 
 
 " The Pilgrim's Progress," Part II. 
 
 You can find almost everything in " The 
 Pilgrim's Progress," as the writer of that wise 
 and brave book, "Ordeal by Battle," taught 
 us seven years ago. And now I must tell you 
 a secret. Mr. Tell-True's name to-day is M.
 
 52 EMILE COUE 
 
 Emile Coue. What ? You had guessed that 
 before I told you ? At any .rate you had not 
 guessed what I am going to tell you now, and 
 mind you engrave it on your hearts. Mr. Great- 
 Heart was. once called Mr. Timorous and Miss 
 Much-afraid is now not unworthy of the man she 
 is to marry, who is Mr. Valiant-for-Truth. 
 
 I have only had seven weeks in which to find 
 a new name for Mr. Dispondency; I hope I have 
 found one, but I cannot yet be sure. Very cer- 
 tainly I can say it is my prayer that " my Dis- 
 ponds and slavish Fears be by no man ever re- 
 ceived," from this day for ever. And so good-bye. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by Jarrold &> Sons, Ltd., Norwich.
 
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