Harvard professor William James, perhaps the most famous nineteenth-century American exponent of ethical therapy, cited the case of a writer named Horace Fletcher who with just a little conscious effort at curbing his resentful habits had actually reached the point where, without the slightest feeling of annoyance or impatience, he could watch a train move out of the station without getting angry at the tardy porter carrying his baggage who had caused him to miss it.
This actually happened to Fletcher, who said that when the porter from the hotel finally came panting into the station just minutes later, looking “as if he feared a scolding . . . I said to him: ‘It doesn’t matter at all, you couldn’t help it, so we will try again tomorrow. Here is your fee, I am sorry you had all this trouble earning it.’ The look of surprise that came over his face was so filled with pleasure that I was paid on the spot for the delay in my departure. Next day he would not accept a cent for the service, and he and I are friends for life.”
New York: Doubleday, To Thine Own Self Be True, by Lewis M. Andrews, Ph.D.