Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/89

 playing, who can suggest a new thought to a man and leave him with the idea that he originated it himself. A great deal of effort is lost, a vast amount of mental force is wasted in trying to convince people that you alone originated an idea or a movement. Bury such a thought in the results produced, for it is results we are after. Get your satisfaction in said results and your amusement in the honest self-glorification of some unconscious borrower who has utilized your idea. It doesn’t pay to be too much of an originator. If you have advanced ideas, keep yourself in the background or you may kill the ideas. Men find the old alignment so familiar that they are slow to want curves replaced by tangents. If you are too ubiquitous with suggestions they will become leery of your good judgment and will unconsciously set the fish tail when you whistle into town. If you will run past the distant signal and find your superior at the home, some of the best stops for the suggestion derail are: “You doubtless have considered the advisability of thus and so;” or, “I assume you are not quite ready to decide the question of hit or miss;” or, “As you were saying the other day, we