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 POWER THROUGH REPOSE
 
 Power Through Repose 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE PAYSON CALL 
 
 Personality binds — universality expands. 
 
 FkAiNCois Delsarte. 
 
 When tiie body is perfectly adjusted, perfectly supplied with 
 force, perfectly free and works with the greatest economy of 
 expenditure, it is fitted to be a perfect instrument alike of im- 
 pression, experience, and expression. 
 
 W. R. Alger. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 R O I! E R T S BROTHERS 
 
 1892
 
 Copyrii;ht, ISDl, 
 By Roberts Broihers. 
 
 5!Inti)n'sitn ^^rrss: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Body's Guidance 7 
 
 II. Perversions of the Body's Guidance ii 
 
 III. Rest in Sleep 15 
 
 IV. Other Forms of Rest 22 
 
 V. The Use of the Brain 27 
 
 VI. The Brain in its Direction of the 
 
 Body 35 
 
 VII. The Direction of the Body in Loco- 
 motion 45 
 
 VIII. Nervous Strain in Pain and Sickness 4S 
 
 IX. Nervous Strain in the Emotions . . 54 
 
 X. NATUia:"s. Teaching 74 
 
 XI. The Child as an Ideal 86 
 
 XII. Training for Rest 93 
 
 XIII. Training for Motion 113 
 
 XIV. Mind Training 129 
 
 XV. The Artistic Side 143 
 
 XVI. Tests 157 
 
 Resume 166
 
 POWER THROUGH REPOSE. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE BODY'S GUIDANCE. 
 
 THE literature relating to the care of the 
 human body is already very extensive. 
 Much has been written about the body's proper 
 food, the air it should breathe, the clothing by 
 which it- should be protected, and the best 
 methods of its development. That literature 
 needs but little added to it, until we, as rational 
 beings, come nearer to obeying the laws which 
 it discloses, and to feeling daily the help which 
 comes from that obedience. 
 
 It is of the better use, the truer guidance of 
 this machine, that I wish especially to write. 
 Although attention is constantly called to the 
 fact of its misuse, — as in neglected rest and in 
 over-strain, — in all the unlimited variety which 
 the perverted ingenuity of a clever people has de- 
 vised, it seems never to have come to any one's
 
 8 Power through Repose. 
 
 mind that this strain in all things, small and 
 great, is something that can be and should be 
 studiously abandoned, with as regular a process 
 of training, from the first simple steps to those 
 more complex, as is required in the work for the 
 development of muscular strength. When a 
 perversion of Nature's laws has continued from 
 generation to generation, we, of the ninth or 
 tenth generation, can by no possibility jump 
 back into the place where the laws can work 
 normally through us, even though our eyes 
 have been opened to a full recognition of such 
 perversion. We must climb back to an orderly 
 life, step by step, and the compensation is large 
 in the constantly growing realization of the 
 greatness of the laws we have been disobeying. 
 The appreciation of the power of a natural law, 
 as it works through us, is one of the keenest 
 pleasures that can come to man in this life. 
 
 The general impression seems to be that 
 common-sense should lead us to a better use 
 of our machines at once. Whereas, common- 
 sense will not bring a true power of guiding the 
 muscles, any more than it will cause the 
 muscles' development, unless having the com- 
 mon-sense to see the need, we realize with it the 
 necessity for cutting a path and walking in it. 
 For the muscles' development, several paths
 
 The Body's Guidance. 9 
 
 have been cut, and many are following them. 
 For the muscles' best guidance, the way is still 
 to be opened to the average man. The only 
 training now in use is followed by sleight-of- 
 hand performers, acrobats, or other jugglers, 
 and that is limited to the professional needs of 
 its followers. 
 
 Again, as the muscles are guided by means 
 of the nerves, a training for the guidance of the 
 muscles means, so far as the physique is con- 
 cerned, first, a training for the better use of the 
 nervous force. The nervous system is so won- 
 derful in its present power for good or ill, so 
 wonderful in its possible power either way, and 
 so much more wonderful as we realize what we 
 do not know about it, that it is not surprising 
 that it is looked upon with awe. Neither is it 
 strange that it seems to many, especially the 
 ignorant, a subject to be shunned. It is not 
 uncommon for a mother, whose daughter is suf- 
 fering, and may be on the verge of nervous 
 prostration because of her misused nerves, to 
 say, " I do not want my daughter to know that 
 she has nerves." The poor child knows it al- 
 ready in the wrong way. It is certainly better 
 that she should know her nerves by learning a 
 wholesome, natural use of them. The mother's 
 remark is ccriunion with many men and women
 
 10 Power through Repose. 
 
 when speaking of themselves, — common with 
 teachers when talking to or of their pupils. It 
 is of course quite natural that it should be a 
 prevailing idea, because hitherto the mention of 
 nerves by man or woman has generally meant 
 perverted nerves, and to dwell on our perver- 
 sions, except long enough to shun them, is cer- 
 tainly unwholesome in the extreme.
 
 I 
 Perversions of the Body's Guidance. 1 1 
 
 II. 
 
 PERVERSIONS OF THE BODY'S 
 GUIDANCE. 
 
 SO evident are the various, the numberless 
 perversions of our powers in the misuse of 
 the machine, that it seems almost unnecessary 
 to write of them. And yet, from another point 
 of view, it is very necessary ; for superabundant 
 as they are, thrusting their evil results upon us 
 every day in painful ways, still we have eyes and 
 see not, ears and hear not, and for want of a 
 fuller realization of these most grievous mis- 
 takes, we are in danger of plunging more and 
 more deeply into the snarls to which they bring 
 us. From nervous prostration to melancholia, 
 or other forms of insanity, is not so long a step. 
 It is of course a natural sequence that the de- 
 cadence of an entire country must follow the 
 waning powers of the individual citizens. Al- 
 though that seems very much to hint, it cannot 
 be too much when we consider even briefly the 
 results that have already come to us through 
 this very misuse of our own voluntary powers.
 
 12 Power tJirough Repose. 
 
 The advertisements of nerve medicines alone 
 speak loudly to one who studies in the least 
 degree the physical tendencies of the nation. 
 Nothing proves better the artificial state of 
 man, than the artificial means he uses to try to 
 adjust himself to Nature's laws, — means which, 
 in most cases, serve to assist him to keep up a 
 little longer the appearance of natural life. For 
 any simulation of that which is natural must 
 sooner or later lead to nothing, or worse than 
 nothing. Even the rest-cures, the most simple 
 and harmless of the nerve restorers, serve a 
 mistaken end. Patients go with nerves tired 
 and worn out with misuse, — commonly called 
 over-work. Through rest. Nature, with the 
 warm, motherly help she is ever ready to bring 
 us, restores the worn body to a normal state ; 
 but its owner has not learned to work the ma- 
 chine any better, — to drive his horses more 
 naturally, or with a gentler hand. He knows 
 he must take life more easily, but even with a 
 passably good realization of that necessity, he 
 can practise it only to a certain extent; and 
 most occupants of rest-cures find themselves 
 driven back more than once for another " rest." 
 Nervous disorders, resulting from over-work, 
 are all about us. Extreme nervous prostration 
 is most prevalent. A thoughtful study of the
 
 Perversio7is of the Body's Guidance. 13 
 
 faces around us, and a better understanding of 
 their lives, brings to ^'ght many who are Hving, 
 one might almost say, in a chronic state of ner- 
 vous prostration, which lasts for years before 
 the break comes. And because of the want of 
 thought, the want of study for a better, more 
 natural use of the machine, few of us appreciate 
 our own possible powers. When with study the 
 appreciation grows, it is a daily surprise, a con- 
 stantly increasing delight. 
 
 Extreme nervous tension seems to be so pe- 
 culiarly American, that a German physician 
 coming to this country to practise became puz- 
 zled by the variety of nervous disorders he was 
 called upon to help, and finally announced his 
 discovery of a new disease which he chose to 
 call " Americanitis." And now we suffer from 
 " Americanitis " in all its unlimited varieties. 
 Doctors study it; nerve medicines arise on every 
 side; nervine hospitals establish themselves ; and 
 rest-cures innumerable spring up in all direc- 
 tions, — but the root of the matter is so com- 
 paratively simple that in general it is overlooked 
 entirely. 
 
 When illnesses are caused by disobedience to 
 the perfect laws of Nature, a steady, careful 
 obedience to these laws will bring us to a 
 healthful state a'^ain.
 
 14 Power through Repose. 
 
 Nature is so wonderfully kind that if we go 
 one-tenth of the way, she will help us the other 
 nine-tenths. Indeed she seems to be watching 
 and hoping for a place to get in, so quickly does 
 she take possession of us, if we do but turn 
 toward her ever so little. But instead of adopt- 
 ing her simple laws and following quietly her 
 perfect way, we try by every artificial means to 
 gain a rapid transit back to her dominion, and 
 succeed only in getting farther away from her. 
 Where is the use of taking medicines to give us 
 new strength, while at the same time we are 
 steadily disobeying the very laws from the ob- 
 servance of which alone the strength can come ? 
 No medicine can work in a man's body while 
 the man's habits are constantly counteracting 
 it. More harm than good is done in the end. 
 Where is the use of all the quieting medicines, 
 if we only quiet our nerves in order that we may 
 continue to misuse them without their crying 
 out? They will cry out sooner or later; for 
 Nature, who is so quick to help us to the true 
 way of living, loses patience at last, and her 
 punishments are justly severe. Or, we might 
 better say, a law is fixed and immovable, and if 
 we disobey and continue to disobey it, we sufi"er 
 the consequences.
 
 Rest in Sleep. 15 
 
 III. 
 
 REST IN SLEEP. 
 
 HOW do we misuse our nervous force? 
 First, let us consider, When should the 
 body be completely at rest? The longest and 
 most perfect rest should be during sleep at 
 night. In sleep we can accomplish nothing in 
 the way of voluntary activity either of mind or 
 body. Any nervous or muscular effort during 
 sleep is not only useless but worse, — it is pure 
 waste of fuel, and results in direct and irrepara- 
 ble harm. Realizing fully that sleep is meant 
 for rest, that the only gain is rest, and that new 
 power for use comes as a consequence, — how 
 absurd it seems that we do not abandon ourselves 
 completely to gaining all that Nature would give 
 us through sleep. 
 
 Suppose, instead of eating our dinner, we 
 should throw the food out of the window, give 
 it to the dogs, do anything with it but what 
 Nature meant wc should, and then wonder why 
 we were not nourished, and why wc suffered
 
 1 6 Power through Repose. 
 
 from faintncss and want of strength. It would 
 be no more senseless than the way in which 
 most of us try to sleep now, and then wonder 
 why we are not better rested from eight hours 
 in bed. Only this matter of fatiguing sleep 
 has crept upon us so slowly that we are blind 
 to it. We disobey mechanically all the laws of 
 Nature in sleep, simple as they are, and are so 
 blinded by our own immediate and personal 
 interests, that the habit of not resting when we 
 sleep has grown to such an extent that to re- 
 turn to natural sleep, we must think, study, and 
 practise. 
 
 Few who pretend to rest give up entirely to 
 the bed, a dead weight, — letting the bed hold 
 them, instead of trying to hold themselves on 
 the bed. Watch, and unless you are an excep- 
 tional case (of which happily there are a few), 
 you will be surprised to see how you are hold- 
 ing yourself on the bed, with tense muscles, 
 if not all over, so nearly all over that a little 
 more tension would hardly increase the fa- 
 tigue with which you are working yourself to 
 sleep. 
 
 The spine seems to be the central point of 
 tension — it does not give to the bed and rest 
 there easily from end to end; it touches at 
 each end and just so far along from each end
 
 Rest in Sleep. 17 
 
 as the man or woman who is holding it will per- 
 mit. The knees are drawn up, the muscles of 
 the legs tense, the hands and arms contracted, 
 and the fingers clinched, either holding the pil- 
 low or themselves. 
 
 The head, instead of letting the pillow have 
 its full weight, holds itself onto the pillow. The 
 tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth, 
 the throat muscles are contracted, and the 
 muscles of the face drawn up in one way or 
 another. 
 
 This seems like a list of horrors, somewhat 
 exaggerated when we realize that it is of 
 sleep, " Tired Nature's sweet restorer," that 
 we are speaking; but indeed it is only too 
 true. 
 
 Of course cases are not in the majority where 
 the being supposed to enjoy repose is using all 
 these numerous possibilities of contraction. But 
 there are very few who have not, unconsciously, 
 some one or two or half-dozen nervous and 
 muscular strains ; and even after they become 
 conscious of the useless contractions, it takes 
 time and watchfulness and patience to relax 
 out of them, the habit so grows upon us. One 
 would think that even though we go to sleep in 
 a tense way, after being once soundly off Nature 
 could gain the advantage over us, and relax the
 
 1 8 Power through Repose. 
 
 muscles in spite of ourselves ; but the habits of 
 inheritance and of years are too much for her. 
 Although she is so constantly gracious and kind, 
 she cannot go out of her way, and we cannot 
 ask her to do so. 
 
 How simple it seems to sleep in the right 
 way; and how wholesome it is even to think 
 about it, in contrast to the wrong way into 
 which so many of us have fallen. If we once 
 see clearly the great compensation in getting 
 back to the only way of gaining restful sleep, 
 the process is very simple, although because we 
 were so far out of the right path it often seems 
 slow. But once gained, or even partially 
 gained, one great enemy to healthful, natural 
 nerves is conquered, and has no possibility of 
 power. 
 
 Of course the mind and its rapid and misdi- 
 rected working is a strong preventive of free 
 nerves, relaxed muscles, and natural sleep. " If 
 I could only stop myself from thinking " is a 
 complaint often heard, and reason or philosophy 
 does not seem to touch it. Even the certain 
 knowledge that nothing is gained by this rapid 
 thought at the wrong time, that very much is 
 lost, makes no impression on the overwrought 
 mind, — often even excites it more, which 
 proves that the trouble, if originally mental, has
 
 Rest in Sleep. 19 
 
 now gained such a hold upon the physique that 
 it must be attacked there first. So the nervous 
 power must be brought to a wholesome state 
 which will enable the body to live according to 
 the true philosophy, when the mind can ac- 
 knowledge it. 
 
 If you cannot stop thinking, do not try; let 
 your thoughts steam ahead if they will. Only 
 relax your muscles, and as the attention is more 
 and more fixed on the interesting process of 
 letting-go of the muscles (interesting, simply 
 because the end is so well worth gaining), the 
 imps of thought find less and less to take hold 
 of, and the machinery in the head must stop its 
 senseless working, because the mind which al- 
 lowed it to work has applied itself to something 
 worth accomplishing. 
 
 The body should also be at rest in necessary 
 reclining in the day, where of course all the laws 
 of sleep apply. Five minutes of complete rest 
 in that way means greater gain than an hour 
 or three hours taken in the usual manner. I 
 remember watching a woman " resting " on a 
 lounge, propped up with the downiest of pillows, 
 holding her head perfectly erect and in a strained 
 position, when it not only would have been 
 easier to let it fall back on the pillow, but it 
 seemed impossible that she should not let it go ;
 
 20 Power through Repose. 
 
 and yet there it was, held erect with an evident 
 strain. Hers is not an unusual case, on the 
 contrary quite a common one. Can we wonder 
 that the German doctor thought he had discov- 
 ered a new disease? And must he not be al- 
 ready surprised and shocked at the precocious 
 growth of the infant monster which he found 
 and named? "So prone are mortals to their 
 own damnation, it seems as though a devil's 
 use were gone." 
 
 There is no better way of learning to over- 
 come these perversions in sleep and similar 
 forms of rest, than to study with careful thought 
 the sleep of a wholesome little child. Having 
 gained the physical freedom necessary to give 
 perfect repose to the body, the quiet, simple 
 dropping of all thought and care can be made 
 more easily possible. So we can approach 
 again the natural sleep and enjoy consciously 
 the refreshment which through our own baby- 
 hood was the unconscious means of giving us 
 daily strength and power for growth. 
 
 To take the regular process, first let go of the 
 muscles, — that will enable us more easily to 
 drop disturbing thoughts ; and as we refuse, 
 without resistance, admittance to the thoughts, 
 the freedom from care for the time will follow, 
 and the rest gained will enable us to awaken
 
 Rest in Sleep. 21 
 
 with new life for cares to come. This, however, 
 is a habit to be established and thoughtfully- 
 studied for; it cannot be acquired at once. 
 More will be said in future chapters as to the 
 process of gaining the habit.
 
 22 Power through Repose. 
 
 IV. 
 
 OTHER FORMS OF REST. 
 
 DO you hold yourself on the chair, or does 
 the chair hold you? When you are 
 subject to the laws of gravitation give up to 
 them, and feel their strength. Do not resist 
 these laws, as a thousand and one of us do 
 when instead of yielding gently and letting 
 ourselves sink into a chair, we put our bodies 
 rigidly on and then hold them there as if fear- 
 ing the chair would break if we gave our full 
 weight to it. It is not only unnatural and 
 unrestful, but most awkward. So in a railroad 
 car. Much, indeed most of the fatigue from 
 a long journey by rail is quite unnecessary, 
 and comes from an unconscious officious effort 
 of trying to carry the train, instead of allowing 
 the train to carry us, or of resisting the motion, 
 instead of relaxing and yielding to it. There 
 is a pleasant rhythm in the motion of the 
 rapidly moving cars which is often restful 
 rather than fatiguing, if we will only let go and
 
 Other Forms of Rest. 23 
 
 abandon ourselves to it. This was strikingly 
 proved by a woman who, having just learned 
 the first principles of relaxation, started on a 
 journey overstrained from mental anxiety. The 
 first effect of the motion was that most disa- 
 greeable, faint feeling known as car-sickness. 
 Understanding the cause, she began at once 
 to drop the unnecessary tension, and the faint- 
 ness left her. Then she commenced an interest- 
 ing novel, and as she became excited by the 
 plot her muscles were contracted in sympathy 
 (so-called), and the faintness returned in full 
 force, so that she had to drop the book 
 and relax again ; and this process was repeated 
 half-a-dozen times before she could place her 
 body so under control of natural laws that it was 
 possible to read without the artificial tension 
 asserting itself and the car-sickness returning 
 in consequence. 
 
 The same law is illustrated in driving. " I 
 cannot drive, it tires me so," is a common com- 
 plaint. Why does it tire you? Because instead 
 of yielding entirely and freely to the seat of the 
 carriage first, and then to its motion, you try to 
 help the horses, or to hold yourself still while 
 the carriage is moving. A man should become 
 one with a carriage in driving, as much as one 
 with his horse in ridinfr. Notice the condition
 
 24 Power throiigh Repose. 
 
 in any place where there is excuse for some 
 anxiety, — while going rather sharply round a 
 corner, or nearing a railroad track. If your feet 
 are not pressed forcibly against the floor of the 
 carriage, the tension will be somewhere else. 
 You are using nervous force to no earthly pur- 
 pose, and to great earthly loss. Where any 
 tension is necessary to make things better, it 
 will assert itself naturally and more truly as 
 we learn to drop all useless and harmful ten- 
 sion. Take a patient suffering from nervous 
 prostration for a long drive, and you will bring 
 him back more nervously prostrated ; even the 
 fresh air will not counteract the strain that 
 comes from not knowing how to relax to the 
 motion of the carriage. 
 
 A large amount of nervous energy is ex- 
 pended unnecessarily while waiting. If we are 
 obliged to wait for any length of time, it does 
 not hurry the minutes or bring that for which 
 we wait to keep nervously strained with impa- 
 tience ; and it does use vital force, and so helps 
 greatly toward " Americanitis." The strain 
 which comes from an hour's nervous waiting, 
 when simply to let yourself alone and keep 
 still would answer much better, is often equal 
 to a day's labor. It must be left to individuals 
 to discover how this applies in their own
 
 Other Forms of Rest. 25 
 
 especial cases, and it will be surprising to see 
 not only how great and how common such 
 strain is, but how comparatively easy it is to 
 drop it. There are of course exceptional times 
 and states when only constant trying and 
 thoughtful watchfulness will bring any marked 
 result. 
 
 We have taken a few examples where there 
 is nothing to do but keep quiet, body and 
 brain, from what should be the absolute rest 
 of sleep to the enforced rest of waiting. Just 
 one word more in connection with waiting and 
 driving. You must catch a certain train. 
 Not having time to trust to your legs or the 
 cars, you hastily take a cab. You will in your 
 anxiety keep up exactly the same strain that 
 you would have had in walking, — as if you could 
 help the carriage along, or as if reaching the 
 station in time depended upon your keeping 
 a rigid spine and tense muscles. You have 
 hired the carriage to take you, and any activity 
 on your part is quite unnecessary until you 
 reach the station ; why not keep quiet and let 
 the horses do the work, and the driver attend 
 to his business? 
 
 It would be easy to fill a small volume with 
 examples of the way in which we are walking 
 directly into nervous prostration; examples
 
 26 Power through Repose. 
 
 only of this one variety of disobedience, — 
 namely, of the laws of rest. And to give illus- 
 trations of all the varieties of disobedience to 
 Nature's laws in activity would fill not one small 
 book, but several large ones ; and then, unless 
 we improve, a year-book of new examples 
 of nervous strain could be published. But 
 fortunately, if we are nervous and short-sighted, 
 we have a good share of brain and common- 
 sense when it is once appealed to, and a few 
 examples will open our eyes and set us think- 
 ing, to real and practical results.
 
 The Use of the Brain. 27 
 
 V. 
 
 THE USE OF THE BRAIN. 
 
 LET us now consider instances where the 
 brain alone is used, and the other parts 
 of the body have nothing to do but keep quiet 
 and let the brain do its work. Take thinking, 
 for instance. Most of us think with the throat 
 so contracted that it is surprising there is room 
 enough to let the breath through, the tongue 
 held firmly, and the jaw muscles set as if suffer- 
 ing from an acute attack of lockjaw. Each 
 has his own favorite tension in the act of 
 meditation, although we are most generous in 
 the force given to the jaw and throat. The 
 same superfluous tension may be observed in 
 one engaged in silent reading; and the force 
 of the strain increases in proportion to the 
 interest or profundity of the matter read. It 
 is certainly clear, without a knowledge of 
 anatomy or ph}-siology, that for pure, unadul- 
 terated thinking, only the brain is needed ; 
 and if vital force is given to other parts of the
 
 28 Power through Repose. 
 
 body to hold them in unnatural contraction, 
 we not only expend it extravagantly, but we 
 rob the brain of its own. With all the active 
 power given to the brain, and the rest of the 
 body allowed simply to live as Nature would 
 have it, of course the brain has just so much 
 more power to work with, and can concen- 
 trate more perfectly, and arrive at its conclu- 
 sions more rapidly. 
 
 This whole machine can be understood per- 
 haps more clearly by comparing it to a commu- 
 nity of people. In any community, — Church, 
 State, institution, or household, — just so far as 
 each member minds his own business, does his 
 own individual work for himself and for those 
 about him, and does not officiously interfere 
 with the business of others, the community is 
 quiet, orderly, and successful. Imagine the 
 state of a deliberative assembly during the 
 delivery of a speech, if half-a-dozen others 
 think to assist the speaker by rising and talk- 
 ing at the same time ; and yet that is the 
 absurd attitude of the human body when, the 
 work for the time all belonging to one member, 
 a dozen and a half other members also con- 
 tract as if desiring to assist, instead of keeping 
 still and minding their own business. One 
 would think that the human machine having
 
 The Use of the Brain. 29 
 
 only one mind, and the community many 
 thousands, the former would be in a more 
 orderly state than the latter. 
 
 In listening attentively, only the brain and 
 ears are needed ; but watch the individuals at 
 an entertaining lecture, or in church with a 
 stirring preacher. They are listening with their 
 spines, their shoulders, the muscles of their 
 faces. I do not refer to the look of interest and 
 attention, or to any of the various expressions 
 which are the natural and true reflection of the 
 state of the mind, but to the strained attention 
 which draws the facial muscles, not at all in 
 sympathy with the speaker, but as a conse- 
 quence of the tense nerves and contracted 
 muscles of the listener. " I do not understand 
 why I have this peculiar sort of asthma every 
 Sunday afternoon," a lady said to me. She 
 was in the habit of hearing, Sunday morning, 
 a preacher, exceedingly interesting, but with a 
 very rapid utterance, and whose mind travelled 
 so fast that the words embodying his thoughts 
 often tumbled over one another. She listened 
 with all her nerves, as well as with those 
 needed, held her breath when he stumbled, 
 to assist ( ! ) him in finding his verbal legs, re- 
 flected every action with twice the force the 
 preacher himself gave, — and then wondered
 
 30 Power through Repose. 
 
 why on Sunday afternoon, and at no other time, 
 she had this nervous catching of the breath. 
 She saw as soon as her attention was drawn to 
 the general principles of Nature, how she had 
 disobeyed this one, and why she had trouble 
 on Sunday afternoon. This case is very amus- 
 ing, even laughable, but it is a fair example of 
 many similar nervous attacks, greater or less ; 
 and how easy it is to see that a whole series 
 of these, day after day, doing their work un- 
 consciously to the victim, will bring sooner or 
 later some form of nervous prostration. 
 
 The same attitudes and the same effects 
 often attend listening to music. It is a common 
 experience to be completely fagged after two 
 hours' of delightful music. There is no ex- 
 aggeration in saying that we should be rested 
 after a fine concert, if it is not too long. And 
 yet so upside-down are we in our ways of 
 living, and through the mistakes of our numer- 
 ous ancestors so accustomed have we become 
 to disobeying Nature's laws, the general im- 
 pression seems to be that music cannot be 
 fully enjoyed without a strained attitude, in- 
 ternal and external. On the contrary, it is 
 much more exquisitely enjoyed and appreci- 
 ated in Nature's way. If the nerves are per- 
 fectly free, they will catch the rhythm of the
 
 The Use of the Brain. 31 
 
 music, and so be helped back to the true rhythm 
 of Nature, they will respond to the harmony 
 and melody with all the vibratory power that 
 God gave them, and how can the result be 
 anything else than rest and refreshment, — un- 
 less having allowed them to vibrate in one 
 direction too long, we have disobeyed a law in 
 another way. 
 
 Our bodies cannot by any possibility hc: free, 
 so long as they are strained by our own per- 
 sonal effort. So long as our nervous force is 
 misdirected in personal strain, we can no more 
 give full and responsive attention to the music, 
 than a piano can sound the harmonics of a 
 sonata if some one is drawing his hands at the 
 same time backwards and forwards over the 
 strings. But, alas ! a contracted personality is 
 so much the order of the day that many of us 
 carry the chronic contractions of years con- 
 stantly with us, and can no more free ourselves 
 for a concert at a day's or a week's notice, than 
 we can gain freedom to receive all the grand 
 universal truths that are so steadily helpful. 
 Iwen if we want to, it is only by daily patience 
 and thought and care that we can cease to be 
 an obstruction to all that is worth living. 
 
 There are, scattered here and there, people 
 who have not lost the natural way of listening;
 
 32 Power through Repose. 
 
 to music, — people who are musicians through 
 and through so that the moment they hear a 
 fine strain they are one with it. Singularly 
 enough the majority of these are fine animals, 
 most perfectly and normally developed in their 
 senses. When the intellect begins to assert 
 itself to any extent, then the nervous strain 
 comes. So noticeable is this, in many cases, 
 that nervous excitement seems often to be from 
 misdirected intellect; and people under the con- 
 trol of their misdirected nervous force often 
 appear wanting in quick intellectual power, — 
 illustrating the law that a stream spreading in 
 all directions over a meadow loses the force 
 that the same amount of water would have if 
 concentrated and flowing in one channel. There 
 are also many cases where the strained nerves 
 bring an abnormal intellectual action. Fortu- 
 nately for the saving of the nation, there are 
 people who from a physical standpoint live 
 naturally. These are refreshing to see ; but 
 they are apt to take life too easily, to have no 
 right care or thought, and to be sublimely 
 selfish. 
 
 Another way in which the brain is constantly 
 used is through the eyes. What deadly fatigue 
 comes from time spent in picture galleries ! 
 There the strain is necessarily greater than in
 
 The Use of the Brain. 33 
 
 listening, because all the pictures and all the 
 colors are before us at once, with no appreci- 
 able interval between forms and subjects that 
 differ widely. But as the strain is greater, so 
 should the care to relieve it increase. We 
 should not go out too far to meet the pictures, 
 but be quiet, and let the pictures come to us. 
 The fatigue can be prevented if we know 
 when to stop, and pleasure at the time and 
 in the memory afterwards will be surprisingly 
 increased. So is it in watching a landscape 
 from the car window, and in all interests which 
 come from looking. I am not for one instant 
 condemning the natiiral expression of pleasure, 
 neither do I mean that there should be any 
 apparent nonchalance or want of interest ; on 
 the contrary, the real interest and its true 
 expression increase as we learn to shun the 
 shams. 
 
 But will not the discovery of all this super- 
 fluous tension make one self-conscious? Cer- 
 tainly it will for a time, and it must do so. 
 You must be conscious of a smooch on your 
 face in order to wash it off, and when the face 
 is clean you think no more of it. So you must 
 see an evil before you can shun it. All these 
 physical evils you must be vividly conscious 
 of, and when you are so annoyed as to feel 
 3
 
 34 Power through Repose. 
 
 the necessity of moving from under them, 
 self-consciousness decreases in equal ratio with 
 the success of your efforts. 
 
 Whenever the brain alone is used in thinking, 
 or in receiving and taking note of impressions 
 through either of the senses, new power comes 
 as we gain freedom from all misdirected force, 
 and with muscles in repose leave the brain 
 to quietly do its work without useless strain 
 of any kind. It is of course evident that this 
 freedom cannot be gained without, first, a con- 
 sciousness of its necessity. The perfect free- 
 dom, however, when reached, means freedom 
 from self-consciousness as well as from the 
 strain which made self-consciousness for a time 
 essential.
 
 The Brain in its Direction of the Body. 35 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE BRAIN IN ITS DIRECTION OF 
 THE BODY. 
 
 WE come now to the brain and its direc- 
 tion of other parts of the body. 
 What tremendous and unnecessary force is 
 used in talking, — from the aimless motion of 
 the hands, the shoulders, the feet, the entire body, 
 to a certain rigidity of carriage, which tells as 
 powerfully in the wear and tear of the nervous 
 system as superfluous motion. It is a curious 
 discovery when we find often how we are hold- 
 ing our shoulders in place, and in the wrong 
 place. A woman receiving a visitor not only 
 talks all over herself, but reflects the visitor's 
 talking all over, and so at the end of the visit 
 is doubly fatigued. " It tires mc so to sec 
 people " is heard often, not only from those 
 who are under the full influence of " Ameri- 
 canitis," but from many who arc simply hover- 
 ing about its borders. " Of course it tires you 
 to sec people, you sec them with so much 
 superfluous effort," can almost without cxccp-
 
 36 Power through Repose 
 
 tion be a true answer. A very little simple 
 teaching will free a woman from that unneces- 
 sary fatigue. If she is sensible, once having had 
 her attention brought and made keenly alive to 
 the fact that she talks all over, she will through 
 constant correction gain the power of talking 
 as Nature meant she should, with her vocal 
 apparatus only, and with such easy motions as 
 may be needed to illustrate her words. In this 
 change, so far from losing animation, she gains 
 it, and gains true expressive power ; for all un- 
 necessary motion of the body in talking simply 
 raises a dust, so to speak, and really blurs 
 the true thought of the mind and feeling of the 
 heart. 
 
 The American voice — especially the female 
 voice — is a target which has been hit hard 
 many times, and very justly. A ladies' luncheon 
 can often be truly and aptly compared to a 
 poultry-yard, the shrill cackle being even more 
 unpleasant than that of a large concourse of 
 hens. If we had once become truly apprecia- 
 tive of the natural mellow tones possible to 
 every woman, these shrill voices would no more 
 be tolerated than a fashionable luncheon would 
 be served in the kitchen. 
 
 A beautiful voice has been compared to corn, 
 oil, and wine. VV6 lack almost entirely the corn
 
 The Brain in its Direction of the Body. 37 
 
 and the oil ; and the wine in our voices is far 
 more inclined to the sharp, unpleasant taste of 
 very poor currant wine, than to the rich, spicy- 
 flavor of fine wine from the grape. It is not in 
 the province of this book to consider the physi- 
 ology of the voice, which would be necessary in 
 order to show clearly how its natural laws are 
 constantly disobeyed. We can now speak of it 
 only with regard to the tension which is the im- 
 mediate cause of the trouble. The effort to 
 propel the voice from the throat, and use force 
 in those most delicate muscles when it should 
 come from the stronger muscles of the dia- 
 phragm, is like trying to make one man do the 
 work of ten ; the result must eventually be the 
 utter collapse of the one man from over-activity, 
 and loss of power in the ten men because of 
 muscles unused. Clergyman's sore throat is 
 almost always explainable in this way ; and there 
 are many laymen with constant trouble in the 
 throat from no cause except the misuse of its 
 muscles in talking. " The old philosopher said 
 the seat of the soul was in the diaphragm. 
 However that may be, the word begins there, 
 soul and body; but you squeeze the life out of 
 it in your throat, and so your words are born 
 dead ! " was the most expressive exclamation of 
 an able trainer of the voice.
 
 38 Power through Repose. 
 
 Few of us feel that we can take the time or 
 exercise the care for the proper training of 
 our voices; and such training is not made a 
 prominent feature, as it should be, in all Ameri- 
 can schools. Indeed, if it were, we would have 
 to begin with the teachers ; for the typical 
 teacher's voice, especially in our public schools, 
 coming from unnecessary nervous strain is 
 something frightful. In a large school-room a 
 teacher can be heard, and more impressively 
 heard, in common conversational tones ; for 
 then it is her mind that is felt more than her 
 body. But the teacher's voice mounts the scale 
 of shrillness and force just in proportion as her 
 nervous fatigue increases; and often a true en- 
 thusiasm expresses itself — or, more correctly, 
 hides itself — in a sharp, loud voice, when it 
 would be far more effective in its power with 
 the pupils if the voice were kept quiet. If we 
 cannot give time or money to the best develop- 
 ment of our voices, we can grow sensitive to the 
 shrill, unpleasant tones, and by a constant 
 preaching of " lower your voices," " speak more 
 quietly," from the teacher to herself, and then 
 to her pupils, from mother to child, and from 
 every woman to her own voice, the standard 
 American voice would change, greatly to the 
 national advantage.
 
 The Brain in its Direction of the Body. 39 
 
 I never shall forget the restful pleasure of 
 hearing a teacher call the roll in a large school- 
 room as quietly as she would speak to a child 
 in a closet, and every girl answering in the same 
 soft and pleasant way. The effect even of that 
 daily roll-call could not have been small in its 
 counteracting influence on the shrill American 
 tone. 
 
 Watch two people in an argument, as the 
 excitement increases the voice rises. In such a 
 case one of the best and surest ways to govern 
 your temper is to lower your voice. Indeed 
 the nervous system and the voice are in such 
 exquisite sympathy that they constantly act and 
 react on each other. It is always easier to 
 relax superfluous tension after lowering the 
 voice. 
 
 "Take the bone and flesh sound from your 
 voice" is a simple and interesting direction. It 
 means do not push so hard with your body and 
 so interfere with the expression of your soul. 
 Thumping on a piano, or hard scraping on a 
 violin, will keep all possible expression from 
 the music, and in just the same proportion will 
 unnecessary physical force hide the soul in a 
 voice. Indeed with the voice — because the 
 instrument is finer — the contrast between Na- 
 ture's way and man's perversion is far greater.
 
 40 Power through Repose. 
 
 One of the first cares with a nervous invalid, 
 or with any one who suffers at all from over- 
 strained nerves, should be for a quiet, mellow 
 voice. It is not an invariable truth that women 
 with poorly balanced nerves have shrill, strained 
 voices. There is also a rigid tone in a nervously 
 low voice, which, though not unpleasant to the 
 general ear, is expressive to one who is in the 
 habit of noticing nervous people, and is much 
 more difficult to relax than the high pitched 
 voices. There is also a forced calm which is 
 tremendous in its nervous strain, the more so as 
 its owner takes pride in what she considers 
 remarkable self-control. 
 
 Another common cause of fatigue with women 
 is the useless strain in sewing. " I get so tired 
 in the back of my neck " is a frequent com- 
 plaint. " It is because you sew with the back 
 of your neck" is generally the correct explana- 
 tion. And it is because you sew with the mus- 
 cles of your waist that they feel so strangely 
 fatigued, and the same with the muscles of your 
 legs or your chest. Wherever the tired feeling 
 comes it is because of unnatural and officious ten- 
 sion, which, as soon as the woman becomes sen- 
 sible of it, can be stopped entirely by taking two 
 or three minutes now and then to let go of these 
 wrongly sympathetic muscles and so teach them
 
 The Brain in its Direction of the Body. 41 
 
 to mind their own business, and sew with only 
 the muscles that are needed. A very simple 
 cause of over-fatigue in sewing is the cramped, 
 strained position of the lungs ; this can be pre- 
 vented without even stopping in the work, by 
 taking long, quiet, easy breaths. Here there 
 must be no excrtio7t whatever in the chest mus- 
 cles. The lungs must seem to expand from the 
 pressure of the air alone, as independently as a 
 rubber ball will expand when external pressure 
 is removed, and they must be allowed to expel 
 the air with the same independence. In this 
 way the growth of breathing power will be slow, 
 but it will be sure and delightfully restful. Fre- 
 quent, full, quiet breaths might be the means of 
 relief to many sufferers, if only they would take 
 the trouble to practise them faithfully, — a very 
 slight effort compared with the result which will 
 surely ensue. And so it is with the fatigue from 
 sewing. I fear I do not exaggerate, when I say 
 that in nine cases out of ten a woman would 
 rather sew with a pain in her neck than stop for 
 the few moments it would take to relax it and 
 teach it truer habits, so that in the end the pain 
 might be avoided entirely. Then, when the in- 
 evitable nervous exhaustion follows, and all the 
 kindred troubles that grow out of it she pities 
 herself and is pitied by others, and wonders why
 
 42 Power through Repose. 
 
 God thought best to afflict her with suffering 
 and iUness. "Thought best!" God never 
 thought best to give any one pain. He made 
 His laws, and they are wholesome and perfect 
 and true, and if we disobey them we must suffer 
 the consequences ! I knock my head hard 
 against a stone and then wonder why God 
 thought best to give me the headache. There 
 would be as much sense in that as there is in 
 much of the so-called Christian resignation to 
 be found in the world to-day. To be sure there 
 are inherited illnesses and pains, physical and 
 mental, but the laws are so made that the com- 
 pensation of clear-sightedness and power for use 
 gained by working our way rightly out of all 
 inheritances and suffering brought by others, 
 fully equalizes any apparent loss. 
 
 In writing there is much unnecessary nervous 
 fatigue. The same cramped attitude of the 
 lungs that accompanies sewing can be counter- 
 acted in the same way, although in neither case 
 should a cramped attitude be allowed at all. 
 Still the relief of a long breath is always helpful 
 and even necessary where one must sit in one 
 position for any length of time. Almost any 
 even moderately nervous man or woman will 
 hold a pen as if some unseen force were trying 
 to pull it away, and will write with firmly set
 
 The Brain in its Directioji of the Body. 43 
 
 jaw, contracted throat, and a powerful tension in 
 the muscles of the tongue, or whatever happens 
 to be the most officious part of this especial in- 
 dividual community. To swing the pendulum 
 to another extreme seems not to enter people's 
 minds when trying to find a happy medium. 
 Writer's paralysis, or even the ache that comes 
 from holding the hand so long in a more or less 
 cramped attitude, is easily obviated by stopping 
 once in an hour or half hour, stretching the 
 fingers wide and letting the muscles slowly relax 
 of their own accord. Repeat this half-a-dozen 
 times, and after each exercise try to hold the 
 pen or pencil with natural lightnoss ; it will not 
 take many days to change the habit of tension 
 to one of ease, although if you are a steady 
 writer the stretching exercise will always be 
 necessary, but much less often than at first. 
 
 In lifting a heavy weight, as in nursing the 
 sick, the relief is immediate from all straining in 
 the back, by pressing hard with the feet on the 
 floor and thinkin^i^ the power of lifting in the 
 legs. There is true economy of nervous force 
 here, and a sensitive spine is freed from a burden 
 of strain which might undoubtedly be the origin 
 of nervous prostration. I have made nurses 
 practise lifting, while impressing the fact forci- 
 bly upon them by repetition before they lift, and
 
 44 Power through Repose. 
 
 during the process of raising a body and lower- 
 ing it, that they must use entirely the muscles 
 of the legs. When once their minds have full 
 comprehension of the new way, the surprise 
 with which they discover the comparative ease 
 of lifting is very pleasant. The whole secret in 
 this and all similar efforts is to use muscular in- 
 stead of nervous force. Direct with the direct- 
 ing power ; work with the working power.
 
 The Direction of the Body in Locomotion. 45 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE DIRECTION OF THE BODY IN 
 LOCOMOTION. 
 
 T IFTING brings us to the use of the entire 
 -*— ' body, which is considered simply in the 
 most common of all its mov^ements, — that of 
 walking. 
 
 The rhythm of a perfect walk is not only de- 
 lightful, but restful ; so that having once gained 
 a natural walk there is no pleasanter way to rest 
 from brain fatigue than by means of this muscle 
 fatigue. And yet we are constantly contradict- 
 ing and interfering with Nature in walking. 
 Women — perhaps partly owing to their unfor- 
 tunate style of dress — seem to hold themselves 
 together as if fearing that having once given 
 their muscles free play, they would fall to pieces 
 entirely. Rather than move easily forward, and 
 for fear they might tumble to pieces, they shake 
 their shoulders and hips from side to side, hold 
 their arms perfectly rigid from the shoulders 
 down, and instead of the easy, natural swing
 
 46 Power through Repose. 
 
 that the motion of walking would give the arms, 
 they go forward and back with no regularity, 
 but are in a chronic state of jerk. The very 
 force used in holding an arm as stiff as the or- 
 dinary woman holds it, would be enough to give 
 her an extra mile in every five-mile walk. Then 
 again, the muscles of the throat must help, and 
 more than anywhere else is force unnecessarily 
 expended in the waist muscles. They can be 
 very soon felt, pushing with all their might 
 — and it is not a small might — officiously 
 trying to assist in the action of the legs ; 
 whereas if they would only let go, mind their 
 own business, and let the legs swing easily as if 
 from the shoulders, they might reflect the 
 rhythmic motion, and gain in a true freedom 
 and power. Of course all this waste of force 
 comes from nervous strain and is nervous strain, 
 and a long walk in the open air, when so much 
 of the new life gained is wrongly expended, does 
 not begin to do the good work that might be 
 accomplished. To walk with your muscles and 
 not use superfluous nervous force is the first 
 thing to be learned, and after or at the same 
 time to direct your muscles as Nature meant 
 they should be directed, — indeed we might 
 almost say to let Nature direct them herself, 
 without our interference. Hurry with your
 
 The Direction of the Body in Locomotion. 47 
 
 muscles and not with your nerves. This tells 
 especially in hurrying for a train, where the ner- 
 vous anxiety in the fear of losing it wakes all 
 possible unnecessary tension and often impedes 
 the motion instead of assisting it. The same 
 law applies here that was mentioned before with 
 regard to the carriage, — only instead of being 
 quiet and letting the carriage take you, be quiet 
 and let your walking machine do its work. So 
 in all hurrying, and the warning can hardly be 
 given too many times, w^e must use our nerves 
 only as transmitters — calm, well-balanced trans- 
 mitters — that our muscles may be more efficient 
 and more able servants. 
 
 The same mistakes of unnecessary tension 
 will be found in running, and, indeed, in all 
 bodily motion, where the machine is not trained 
 to do its work with only the nerves and muscles 
 needed for the purpose. We shall have oppor- 
 tunity to consider these motions in a new light 
 when we come to the directions for gaining a 
 power of natural motion; now we deal only with 
 mistakes.
 
 48 Power through Repose, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 NERVOUS STRAIN IN PAIN AND 
 SICKNESS. 
 
 '' t ^HERE is no way in which superfluous and 
 -■- dangerous tension is so rapidly^ increased 
 as in the bearing of pain. The general impres- 
 sion seems to be that one should brace up to a 
 pain ; and very great strength of will is often 
 shown in the effort made and the success 
 achieved in bearing severe pain by means of 
 this bracing process. But alas, the reaction 
 after the pain is over ! — that alone would show 
 the very sad misuse which had been made of a 
 strong will. Not that there need be no reac- 
 tion ; but it follows naturally that the more 
 strain brought to bear upon the nervous system 
 in endurance, the greater must be the reaction 
 when the load is lifted. Indeed, so well is this 
 known in the medical profession, that it is a 
 surgical axiom that the patient who most com- 
 pletely controls his expression of pain will be 
 the greatest sufferer from the subsequent reac-
 
 Nervous Strain in Pain and Sickness. 49 
 
 tion. While there is so much pain to be en- 
 dured in this world, a study of how best to bear 
 it certainly is not out of place, especially when 
 decided practical effects can be quickly shown 
 as the result of such study. So prevalent is the 
 idea that a pain is better borne by clinching 
 the fists and tightening all other muscles in the 
 body correspondingly, that I know the possi- 
 bility of a better or more natural mode of en- 
 durance will be laughed at by many, and others 
 will say, " That is all very well for those who 
 can relax to a pain, — let them gain from it, I 
 cannot; it is natural for me to set my teeth 
 and bear it." There is a distinct difference be- 
 tween what is natural to us and natural to Nature, 
 although the first term is of course misused. 
 
 Pain comes from an abnormal state of some 
 part of the nervous system. The more the 
 nerves are strained to bear pain, the more sen- 
 sitive they become ; and of course those affected 
 immediately feel most keenly the increased 
 sensitiveness, and so the pain grows worse. 
 Reverse that action, and through the force of 
 our own inhibitory power let a new pain be a 
 reminder to us to let go, instead of to hold on, 
 and by decreasing the strain we decrease the 
 possibility of more pain. Whatever reaction 
 may follow pain then, will be reaction from 
 4
 
 50 Power through Repose. 
 
 the pain itself, not from the abnormal tension 
 which has been held for the purpose of bear- 
 ing it. 
 
 But — it will be objected — is not the very 
 effort of the brain to relax the tension a nervous 
 strain? Yes, it is, — not so great, however, as 
 the continued tension all over the body, and it 
 grows less and less as the habit is acquired of 
 bearing the pain easily. The strain decreases 
 more rapidly with those who having under- 
 taken to relax, perceive the immediate effects ; 
 for, of course, as the path clears and new light 
 comes they are encouraged to walk more stead- 
 ily in the easier way. 
 
 I know there are pains that are better borne 
 and even helped by a certain amount of bracing, 
 but if the idea of bearing such pain quietly, 
 easily, naturally, takes a strong hold of the 
 mind, all bracing will be with a true equilibrium 
 of the muscles, and will have the required effect 
 without superfluous tension. 
 
 One of the most simple instances of bearing 
 pain more easily by relaxing to it occurs while 
 sitting in the dentist's chair. Most of us clutch 
 the arms, push with our feet, and hold ourselves 
 off the chair to the best of our ability. Every 
 nerve is alive with the expectation of being 
 hurt.
 
 Nervous Strain in Pain and Sickness. 51 
 
 The fatigue which results from an hour or 
 more of this dentist tension is too well known 
 to need description. Most of the nervous fa- 
 tigue suffered from the dentist's work is in con- 
 sequence of the unnecessary strain of expecting 
 a hurt, and not from any actual pain inflicted. 
 The result obtained by insisting upon making 
 yourself a dead weight in the chair, if you suc- 
 ceed only partially, will prove this. It will also 
 be a preliminary means of getting well rid of 
 the dentist fright, — that peculiar dread which is 
 so well known to most of us. The effect of 
 fright is nervous strain, which again contracts 
 the muscles. If we drop the muscular tension, 
 and so the nervous strain, thus working our way 
 into the cause by means of the effect, there will 
 be no nerves or muscles to hold the fright, 
 which then so far as the physique is concerned 
 cannot exist. So far as the physique is con- 
 cerned, — that is emphatic ; for as we work in- 
 ward from the effect to the cause we must be 
 met by the true philosophy inside, to accom- 
 plish the whole work. I might relax my body 
 out of the nervous strain of fright all day; if 
 my mind insisted upon being frightened it would 
 simply be a process of freeing my nerves and 
 muscles that they might be made more effect- 
 ually tense by an unbalanced, miserably con-
 
 52 Power through Repose. 
 
 trolled mind. In training to bring body and 
 mind to a more normal state, the teacher must 
 often begin with the body only, and use his own 
 mind to gently lead the pupil to clearer sight. 
 Then when the pupil can strike the equilibrium 
 between mind and body, he must be left to 
 acquire the habit for himself. 
 
 The same principles by which bearing the 
 work of the dentist is made easier, are appli- 
 cable in all pain, and especially helpful when 
 pain is nervously exaggerated. It would be 
 useless and impossible to follow the list of vari- 
 ous pains which we attempt to bear by means 
 of additional strain. 
 
 Each of us has his own personal temptation 
 in the way of pain, — from the dentist's chair to 
 the most severe suffering, or the most painful 
 operation, — and each can apply for himself the 
 better w^ay of bearing it. And it is not per- 
 haps out of place here to speak of the taking 
 of ether or any anaesthetic before an opera- 
 tion. The power of relaxing to the process 
 easily and quietly brings a quicker and pleas- 
 antcr effect with less disagreeable results. 
 One must take ether easily in mind and body. 
 It a man forces himself to be quiet externally, 
 and is frightened and excited mentally, as 
 soon as he has become unconscious enough to
 
 Nervous Strain in Pain and Sickness. 53 
 
 lose control of his voluntary muscles, the 
 impression of fright made upon the brain 
 asserts itself, and he struggles and resists in 
 proportion. 
 
 These same principles of repose should be 
 applied in illness when it comes in other forms 
 than that of pain. We can easily increase 
 whatever illness may attack us by the nervous 
 strain which comes from fright, anxiety, or 
 annoyance. I have seen a woman retain a 
 severe cold for days more than was necessary, 
 simply because of the chronic state of strain 
 she kept herself in by fretting about it ; and 
 in another unpleasantly amusing case the 
 sufferer's constantly expressed annoyance took 
 the form of working almost without intermis- 
 sion to find remedies for herself Without 
 using patience enough to wait for the result of 
 one remedy, she would rush to another until 
 she became — so to speak — twisted and snarled 
 in the meshes of a cold which it took weeks 
 thoroughly to cure. This is not uncommon, 
 and not confined merely to a cold in the head. 
 
 We can increase the suffering of friends 
 through "sympathy" given in the same mis- 
 taken way by which we increase our own pain, 
 or keep ourselves longer than necessary in an 
 uncomfortable illness.
 
 54 Power through Repose. 
 
 IX. 
 
 NERVOUS STRAIN IN THE EMOTIONS. 
 
 THE most intense suffering which follows 
 a misuse of the nervous power comes from 
 exaggerated, unnecessary, or sham emotions. 
 We each have our own emotional microscope, 
 and the strength of its lens increases in propor- 
 tion to the supersensitiveness of our nervous 
 system. If we are a little tired, an emotion 
 which in itself might hardly be noticed, so 
 slight is the cause and so small the result, will 
 be magnified many times. If we are very tired, 
 the magnifying process goes on until often we 
 have made ourselves ill through various suffer- 
 ings, all of our own manufacture. 
 
 This increase of emotion has not always ner- 
 vous fatigue as an excuse. Many have inher- 
 ited emotional microscopes, and carry them 
 through the world getting and giving unneces- 
 sary pain, and losing more than half of the 
 delight of life in failing to get an unprejudiced 
 view of it. If the tired man or woman would
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 55 
 
 have the good sense to stop for one minute 
 and use the power which is given us all of 
 understanding and appreciating our own per- 
 verted states and so move on to better, how 
 easy it would be to recognize that a feeling is 
 exaggerated because of fatigue, and wait until 
 we have gained the power to drop our emo- 
 tional microscopes and save all the evil results 
 of allowing nervous excitement to control us. 
 We are even permitted to see clearly an inher- 
 ited tendency to magnify emotions and to over- 
 come it to such an extent that life seems new 
 to us. This must be done by the individual 
 himself, through a personal appreciation of his 
 own mistakes and active steps to free himself 
 from them. No amount of talking, persuad- 
 ing, or teaching will be of the slightest service 
 until that personal recognition comes. This has 
 been painfully proved too often by those who 
 see a friend suffering unnecessarily, and in the 
 short-sighted attempt to wrench the emotional 
 microscope from his hand, simply cause the 
 hold to tighten and the magnifying power to 
 increase. A careful, steady training of the 
 physique opens the way for a better practice 
 of the wholesome philosophy, and the micro- 
 scope drops with the relaxation of the external 
 tension which has helped to hold it.
 
 $6 Power through Repose. 
 
 Emotions are often not even exaggerated, 
 but are from the beginning imaginary; and 
 there arc no more industrious imps of evil 
 than these sham fcehngs. The imps have no 
 better field for their destructive work than in 
 various forms of morbid, personal attachment, 
 and in what is commonly called religion, — but 
 which has no more to do with genuine religion 
 than the abnormal personal likings have to do 
 with love. 
 
 It is a fact worthy of notice that the two 
 powers most helpful, most strengthening, when 
 sincerely felt and realized, are the ones oftenest 
 perverted and shammed, through morbid states 
 and abnormal nervous excitement. The sham 
 is often so perfect an image of the reality that 
 even the shammer is deceived. 
 
 To tell one of these pseudo-religious women 
 that the whole attitude of her externally sancti- 
 fied life is a sham emotion, would rouse anything 
 but a saintly spirit, and surprise her beyond 
 measure. Yet the contrast between the true, 
 healthful, religious feeling and the sham is per- 
 fectly marked, even though both classes follow 
 the same forms and belong to the same charita- 
 ble societies. With the one, religion seems to 
 be an accomplishment, with a rivalry as to who 
 can carry it to the finest point ; with the other,
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 57 
 
 it is a steadily growing power of wholesome 
 use. 
 
 This nervous strain from sham emotions, it 
 must be confessed, is more common to the fem- 
 inine nature. So dangerously prevalent is it 
 that in every girls' school a true repression of 
 the sham and a development of real feeling 
 should be the thoughtful, silent effort of all the 
 teachers. Any one who knows young girls 
 feels deeply the terrible harm which comes to 
 them in the weakening of their delicate, nervous 
 systems through morbid, emotional excitement. 
 The emotions are vividly real to the girls, but 
 entirely sham in themselves. Great care must 
 be taken to respect the sense of reality which a 
 young girl has in these mistakes, until she can 
 be led out so far that she herself recognizes the 
 sham ; then will come a hearty, wholesome 
 desire to be free from it. 
 
 A school governed by a woman with strong 
 " magnetism," and an equally strong love of 
 admiration and devotion, can be kept in a 
 chronic state of hysteria by the emotional affec- 
 tion of the girls for their teacher. When they 
 cannot reach the teacher they will transfer the 
 feeling to one another. VVHiere this is allowed 
 to pervade the atmosi)hcre of a girls' school, 
 those who escape floods of tears or other acute
 
 58 Power through Repose. 
 
 hysterical symptoms are the dull, phlegmatic 
 temperaments. 
 
 Often a girl will go from one of these morbid 
 attachments to another, until she seems to have 
 lost the power of a good, wholesome affection. 
 Strange as it may seem, the process is a steady 
 hardening of the heart. The same result comes 
 to man or woman who has followed a series 
 of emotional flirtations, — the perceptions are 
 dulled, and the whole tone of the system, men- 
 tal and physical, is weakened. The effect is in- 
 exact correspondence in another degree with 
 the result which follows an habitual use of 
 stimulants. 
 
 Most abnormal emotional states are seen in 
 women — and sometimes in men — who believe 
 themselves in love. The suffering is to them 
 very real. It seems cruel to say, " My dear, 
 you are not in the least in love with that man ; 
 you are in love with your own emotions. If 
 some one more attractive should appear, you 
 could at once transfer your emotional tortures 
 to the seemingly more worthy object." Such 
 ideas need not be flung in so many words at a 
 woman, but she may be gently led until she sees 
 clearly for herself the mistake, and will even 
 laugh at the morbid sensations that before 
 seemed to her terribly real.
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 59 
 
 How many foolish, almost insane actions of 
 men and women come from sham emotions and 
 the nervous excitement generated by them, or 
 from nervous excitement and the sham emotions 
 that result in consequence ! 
 
 Care should be taken first to change the 
 course of the nervous power that is expressing 
 itself morbidly, to open for it a healthy outlet, 
 to guide it into that more wholesome channel, 
 and then help the owner to a better control and 
 a clearer understanding, that she may gain a 
 healthy use of her wonderful nervous power. 
 A gallop on horseback, a good swim, fresh air 
 taken with any form of wholesome fun and ex- 
 ercise is the way to begin if possible. A woman 
 who has had all the fresh air and interesting ex- 
 ercise she needs, will shake off the first sign of 
 morbid emotions as she would shake off a rat or 
 any other vermin. 
 
 To one who is interested to study the possible 
 results of misdirected nervous power, nothing 
 could illustrate it with more painful force than 
 the story by Rudyard Kipling, " In the Matter 
 of a Private." 
 
 Real emotions, whether painful or delightful, 
 leave one eventually with a new supply of 
 strength ; the sham, without exception, leave 
 their victim weaker, physically and mentally,
 
 6o Power through Repose. 
 
 unless they are recognized as sham, and volun- 
 tarily dismissed by the owner of the nerves that 
 have been rasped by them. It is an inexpressibly 
 sad sight to see a woman broken down and an 
 invalid, for no reason whatever but the unneces- 
 sary nervous excitement of weeks and months 
 of sham emotion. Hardly too strong an ap- 
 peal can be made to mothers and teachers 
 for a careful watchfulness of their girls, that 
 their emotions be kept steadily wholesome, so 
 that they may grow and develop into that 
 great power for use and healthful sympathy 
 which always belongs to a woman of fine 
 feeling. 
 
 There is a term used in college which de- 
 scribes most expressively an intense nervous 
 excitement and want of control, — namely, " dry 
 drunk." It has often seemed to me that sham 
 emotions are a woman's form of getting drunk, 
 and nervous prostration is its delirium tremens. 
 Not the least of the suffering caused by emo- 
 tional excitement comes from mistaken sympa- 
 thy with others. Certain people seem to live 
 on the principle that if a friend is in a swamp, it 
 is necessary to plunge in with him; and that if 
 the other man is up to his waist, the sympathizer 
 shows his friendliness by allowing the mud to 
 come up to his neck. Whereas, it is evident
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 6i 
 
 that the deeper my friend is immersed in a 
 swamp, the more sure I must be to keep on firm 
 ground that I may help him out ; and sometimes 
 I cannot even give my hand, but must use a 
 long pole, the more surely to relieve him from 
 danger. It is the same with a mental or moral 
 swamp, or most of all with a nervous swamp, 
 and yet so little do people appreciate the use of 
 this long pole that if I do not cry when my 
 friend cries, moan when my friend moans, and 
 persistently refuse to plunge into the same grief 
 that I may be of more real use in helping him 
 out of it, I am accused by my friend and my 
 friend's friend of coldness and want of sympa- 
 thy. People have been known to refuse the 
 other end of your pole because you will not 
 leave it and come into the swamp with them. 
 
 It is easy to see why this mistaken sympathy 
 is the cause of great unnecessary nervous strain. 
 The head nurse of a hospital in one of our large 
 cities was interrupted while at dinner by the 
 deep interest taken by the other nurses in seeing 
 an accident case brought in. When the man 
 was out of sight the nurses lost their appetite 
 from sympathy ; and the forcible way with 
 which their superior officer informed them that 
 if they had any real sympathy for the man they 
 would eat to gain strength to serve him, gave a
 
 62 Power tJirojigh Repose. 
 
 lesson by which many nervous sympathizers 
 could greatly profit. 
 
 Of course it is possible to become so 
 hardened that you "eat your dinner" from a 
 want of feeling, and to be consumed only with 
 sympathy for yourself; but it is an easy matter 
 to make the distinction between a strong, 
 wholesome sympathy and selfish want of feel- 
 ing, and easier to distinguish between the 
 sham sympathy and the real. The first causes 
 you to lose nervous strength, the second 
 gives you new power for wholesome use to 
 others. 
 
 In all the various forms of nervous strain 
 which we study to avoid, let us realize and turn 
 from false sympathy as one to be especially and 
 entirely shunned. 
 
 Sham emotions are, of course, always mis- 
 directed force; but it is not unusual to see a 
 woman suffering from nervous prostration 
 caused by nervous power lying idle. This 
 form of invalidism comes to women who have 
 not enough to fill their lives in necessary inter- 
 est and work, and have not thought of turning 
 or been willing to turn their attention to some 
 needed charity or work for others. A woman 
 in this state is like a steam-engine with the fire 
 in full blast, and the boiler shaking with the
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. Q'if 
 
 power of steam not allowed to escape in motive 
 force. 
 
 A somewhat unusual example of this is a 
 young woman who had been brought up as a 
 nervous invalid, had been through nervous pros- 
 tration once, and was about preparing for another 
 attack, when she began to study for a better 
 control of her nervous force. After gaining 
 a better use of her machine, she at once ap- 
 plied its power to work, — gradually at first and 
 then more and more, until she found herself 
 able to endure what others had to give up as 
 beyond their strength. 
 
 The help for these, and indeed for all cases, 
 is to make the life objective instead of subjec- 
 tive. " Look out, not in ; look up, not down ; 
 lend a hand," is the motto that must be followed 
 gently and gradually, but surely, to cure or to 
 prevent a case of " Americanitis." 
 
 But again, good sense and care must be taken 
 to preserve the equilibrium; for nervous tension 
 and all the suffering that it brings come more 
 often from mistaken devotion to others than from 
 a want of care for them. Too many of us arc 
 trying to make special Providences of ourselves 
 for our friends. To say that this short-sighted 
 martyrdom is not only foolish but selfish sccm-i 
 hard, but a little thouirht will show it to be so-
 
 64 Power through Repose. 
 
 A woman sacrifices her health in over-exer- 
 tion for a friend. If she does not distress the 
 object of her devotion entirely out of propor- 
 tion to the use she performs, she at least unfits 
 herself, by over-working, for many other uses, 
 and causes more suffering than she saves. So 
 are the great ends sacrificed to the smaller. 
 
 " If you only knew how hard I am trying to 
 do right "comes with a strained face and nervous 
 voice from many and many a woman. If she 
 could only learn in this case, as in others, of 
 "vaulting ambition that o'er-leaps itself and 
 falls upon the other side ; " if she could only 
 realize that the very strained effort with which she 
 tries, makes it impossible for her to gain, — if she 
 would only " relax " to whatever she has to do, 
 and then try, the gain would be incomparable. 
 
 The most intense sufferers from nervous 
 excitement are those who suppress any sign of 
 their feeling. The effort to " hold in" increases 
 the nervous strain immensely. As in the case 
 of one etherized, who has suppressed fright 
 which he feels very keenly, as soon as the 
 voluntary muscles are relaxed the impression 
 on the brain shows itself with all the vehe- 
 mence of the feeling, — so when the muscles 
 are consciously relaxed the nervous excitement 
 bursts forth like the eruption of a small vol-
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 65 
 
 cano, and for a time is a surprise to the man 
 or woman who has been in a constant effort of 
 suppression. 
 
 The difference between suppressing a feeling 
 and controlling it without suppression is so 
 great and so interesting in the wholesome re- 
 sults of the latter, but so hard to realize until 
 one has actually experienced it, that I almost 
 despair of making it clear in words. 
 
 Many of us know with what intense force a 
 temper masters us when, having held in for 
 some time, some spring is touched which makes 
 silence impossible, and the sense of relief which 
 follows a volley of indignant words. To say 
 that we can get a far greater and more lasting 
 relief without a word, but simply through re- 
 laxing our muscles and freeing our excited 
 nerves, seems tame ; but it is practically true, 
 and is indeed the only way from a physical 
 standpoint that one may be sure of controlling 
 a high temper. In that way, also, we keep the 
 spirit, the power, the strength, from which the 
 temper comes, and so far from being tame, 
 life has more for us. We do not tire ourselves 
 and lose nervous force through the wear and 
 tear of losing our temper. To speak expres- 
 sively, if not scientifically, Let go, and let the 
 temper slip over your nerves and off, — you do 
 5
 
 66 Power through Repose. 
 
 not lose it then, for you know where it is, and 
 you keep all the nervous force that would have 
 been used in suppression or expression for 
 better work. 
 
 That, the reader will say, is not so easy as 
 it sounds. Granted, there must be the desire 
 to get a true control of the temper; but most 
 of us have that desire, and while we cannot 
 expect immediate success, steady practice will 
 bring startling results sooner than we realize. 
 There must be a clear, intelligent understand- 
 ing of what we are aiming at, and how to gain 
 it; but that is not difificult, and once recognized 
 grows steadily as we gain practical results. 
 Let the first feeling of anger be a reminder to 
 "let go." But you will say, " I do not want 
 to let go," — only because your various grand- 
 fathers and grandmothers were unaccustomed to 
 relieving themselves in that manner. When we 
 give way to anger and let it out in a volley of 
 words, there is often a sense of relief, but more 
 often a reaction which is most unpleasant, and 
 is greatly increased by the pain given to others. 
 The relief is certain if we " relax; " and not only 
 is there then no painful reaction, but we gain a 
 clear head to recognize the justice or injustice 
 of our indignation, and to see what can be done 
 about its cause.
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 6"/ 
 
 Petty irritability can be met in the same way. 
 As with nervous pain it seems at first impossible 
 to " relax to it ;" but the Rubicon once crossed, we 
 cannot long be irritable, — it is so much simpler 
 not to be, and so much more comfortable. 
 
 If when we are tempted to fly into a rage or 
 to snap irritably at others we could go through 
 a short process of relaxing motions, the eff"ect 
 would be delightful. But that would be ridicu- 
 lous; and we must do our relaxing in the 
 privacy of the closet and recall it when needed 
 outside, that we may relax without observation 
 except in its happy results. I know people 
 will say that anything to divert the mind will 
 cure a high temper or irritability. That is 
 only so to a limited extent; and so far as it is 
 so, simply proves the best process of control. 
 Diversion relieves the nervous excitement, turn- 
 ing the attention in another direction, — and so 
 is relaxing so far as it goes. 
 
 Much quicker and easier than self-control is 
 the control which allows us to meet the irri- 
 tability of others without echoing it. The 
 temptation to echo a bad temper or an irri- 
 table disposition in others, we all know; but 
 the relief which comes to ourselves and to the 
 sufferer as we quietly relax and refuse to reflect 
 it, is a sensation that many of us have yet to
 
 68 Power through Repose. 
 
 experience. One keeps a clear head in that 
 way, not to mention a charitable heart; saves 
 any quantity of nervous strain, and keeps off 
 just so much tendency to nervous prostration. 
 
 Practically the way is opened to this better 
 control through a physical training which gives 
 us the power of relaxing at will, and so of 
 maintaining a natural, wholesome equilibrium 
 of nerves and muscles. 
 
 Personal sensitiveness'is, to a great degree, a 
 form of nervous tension. An individual case of 
 the relief of this sensitiveness, although laugh- 
 able in the means of cure, is so perfectly illus- 
 trative of it that it is worth telling. A lady who 
 suffered very much from having her feelings hurt 
 came to me for advice. I told her whenever any- 
 thing was said to wound her, at once to imagine 
 her legs heavy, — that relaxed her muscles, freed 
 her nerves, and relieved the tension caused by 
 her sensitive feelings. The cure seemed to her 
 wonderful. It would not have done for her to 
 think a table heavy, or a chair, or to have di- 
 verted her mind in any other way, for it was the 
 effect of relaxation in her own body that she 
 wanted, which came from persistently thinking 
 her legs heavy. Neither could her sensitiveness 
 have taken a very deep hold, or mere outside 
 relaxation would not have reached it; but that
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 69 
 
 outside process had the effect of greatly assisting 
 in the power to use a higher philosophy with 
 the mind. 
 
 Self-consciousness and all the personal an- 
 noyances that come with or follow it are to so 
 great an extent nervous tension, that the ease 
 with which they may be helped seems some- 
 times like a miracle to those who study for a 
 better guidance of their bodies. 
 
 Of worries, from the big worries with a real 
 foundation to the miserable, petty, -nagging 
 worries that wear a woman's nervous system 
 more than any amount of steady work, there is 
 so much to be said that it would prove tedious, 
 and indeed unnecessary to recount them, A 
 few words will suggest enough toward their 
 remedy to those who are looking in the right 
 direction, and to others many words would be 
 of no avail. 
 
 The petty worries are the most wearing, and 
 they fortunately are the most easily helped. 
 By relaxing the muscular contractions invari- 
 ably accompanying them we seem to make an 
 open channel, and they slip through, — which 
 expression I am well aware is not scientific. 
 The common saying, " Cares roll off her like 
 water off a duck's back," means the same thing. 
 Some human ducks are made with backs emi-
 
 70 Power through Repose. 
 
 nently fitted for cares to slip from ; but those 
 whose backs seem to be made to hold the cares 
 can remould themselves to the right propor- 
 tions, and there is great compensation in their 
 appreciation of the contrast. 
 
 Never resist a worry. It is increased many 
 times by the effort to overcome it. The strain 
 of the effort makes it constantly more difficult 
 to drop the strain of the worry. When we 
 quietly go to work to relax the muscles and so 
 quiet the nerves, ignoring a worry, the way in 
 which it disappears is surprising. Then is the 
 time to meet it with a broad philosophizing on 
 the uselessness of worry, etc., and " clinch " our 
 freedom, so to speak. 
 
 It is not at the first attempt to relax, or the 
 second, or the ninth, that the worry will disap- 
 pear for many of us, and especially for worriers. 
 It takes many hours to learn what relaxing is ; 
 but having once learned, its helpful power is too 
 evident for us not to keep at it, if we really de- 
 sire to gain our freedom. 
 
 To give the same direction to a worrier that 
 was so effective with the woman whose feelings 
 were easily hurt, may seem equally ridiculous ; 
 but in many cases it will certainly prove most 
 useful. When you begin to worry, think your 
 legs heavy. Your friends will appreciate the
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. yi 
 
 relief more than you do, and will gain as you 
 gain. 
 
 A recital of all the emotional disturbances 
 which seem to have so strong a hold on us, and 
 which are merely misdirected nervous force, 
 might easily fill a volume ; but a few of the 
 most common troubles, such as have been given, 
 will perhaps suffice to help each individual to 
 understand his own especial temptations in that 
 direction, — ^and if I have made even partially 
 clear the ease with which they may be relieved 
 through careful physical training, it is all I can 
 hope for. 
 
 The body must be trained to obey the mind ; 
 the mind must be trained to give the body com- 
 mands worth obeying. 
 
 The real feelings of life are too exquisite and 
 strengthening in their depth and power to be 
 crowded out by those gross forms of nervous 
 excitement which I can find no better name 
 for than sham emotions. If we could only 
 realize this more broadly, and bring up the 
 children with a wholesome dread of morbid 
 feeling what a marked change would there be 
 in the state of the entire race ! 
 
 All physicians agree that in most cases it is 
 not overwork, it is not mental strain, that causes 
 the <:rreatcr number of cases of nervous disturb-
 
 72 Power through Repose. 
 
 ance, but that they are more often brought on 
 by emotional strain. 
 
 The deepest grief, as well as the greatest joy, 
 can be met in a way to give new strength and 
 new power for use if we have a sound philosophy 
 and a well-guided, wholesome body to meet it. 
 But these last are the work of years ; and neither 
 the philosophy nor the physical strength can be 
 brought to bear at short notice, although we can 
 do much toward a better equilibrium even late 
 in life. 
 
 Various forms of egotism, if not exactly sham 
 emotions, are the causes of great nervous strain. 
 Every physician knows the intense egotism 
 which often comes with nervous prostration. 
 Some one has very aptly said that insanity is 
 only egotism gone to seed. It often seems so, 
 especially when it begins with nervous prostra- 
 tion. We cannot be too careful to shun this 
 nervous over-care for self 
 
 We inherit so strongly the subjective way of 
 living rather than the objective, that it impresses 
 itself upon our very nerves ; and they, instead of 
 being open channels for the power always at our 
 command to pass freely to the use for which it 
 is intended, stop the way by means of the atten- 
 tion which is so uselessly turned back on our- 
 selves, our narrow personal interests, and our
 
 Nervous Strain in the Emotions. 73 
 
 own welfare. How often we see cases where by 
 means of the nervous tension all this has in- 
 creased to a disease, and the tiresome Ego is a 
 monster in the way of its owner and all his would- 
 be friends. " I cannot bear this." " I shall take 
 cold." " If you only knew how / suffered." 
 Why should we know, unless through knowing 
 we can give you some relief? And so it goes, 
 I — I — I — forever, and the more " I," the 
 more nervous prostration. 
 
 Keep still, that all which is good may come 
 to you, and live out to others that your life may 
 broaden for use. In this way we can take all 
 that Nature is ready to give us, and will con- 
 stantly give us, and use it as hers and for her 
 purposes, which are always the truest and best. 
 Then we live as a little child would live, — only 
 with more wisdom.
 
 74 Power through Repose, 
 
 X. 
 
 NATURE'S TEACHING. 
 
 NATURE is not only our one guide in the 
 matter of physical training, she is the 
 chief engineer who will keep us in order and 
 control the machine, if we study to fulfil her 
 conditions and shun every personal interference 
 with the wholesome working of her laws. 
 
 Here is where the exquisite sense of growing 
 power comes. In studying Nature, we not only 
 realize the strength that comes from following 
 her lead, but we discover her in ourselves gently 
 moving us onward. 
 
 We all believe we look to Nature, if we think 
 at all ; and it is a surprise to find how mistaken 
 we are. The time would not be wasted if we 
 whose duties do not lead us to any direct study 
 of natural life for personal reasons, would take 
 fifteen minutes every day simply to think of 
 Nature and her methods of working, and to see 
 at the same time where we constantly inter- 
 fere with the best use of her powers so far as
 
 NatJires TeacJdng. 75 
 
 we individually are concerned. With all rever- 
 ence I say it, this should be the first form of 
 prayer ; and one's ability to pray sincerely to 
 God and live in accordance with His laws would 
 grow in proportion to the power of a sincere 
 sympathy with the workings of those laws in 
 Nature. 
 
 Try to realize the quiet power of all natural 
 growth and movement, from a blade of grass, 
 through a tree, a forest of trees, the entire vege- 
 table growth on the earth, the movement of the 
 planets, to the growth and involuntary vital 
 operations of our own bodies. 
 
 No words can bring so full a realization of 
 the quiet power in the progress of Nature as will 
 the simple process of following the growth of a 
 tree in imagination from the working of its sap 
 in the root up to the tips of the leaves, the blos- 
 soms, and the fruit. Or beginning lower, follow 
 the growth of a blade of grass or a flo\Ver, then 
 a tree, and so on to the movement of the earth, 
 and then of all the planets in the universe. Let 
 your imagination picture so vividly all natural 
 movements, little by little, that you seem to be 
 really at one with each and all. Study the 
 orderly working of your own bodily functions ; 
 and having this clearly in mind, notice where 
 you, in all movein nts that are or might be
 
 "j^ Power through Repose. 
 
 under the control of your will, are disobeying 
 Nature's laws. 
 
 Nature shows us constantly that at the back 
 of every action there should be a great repose. 
 This holds good from the minutest growth to 
 the most powerful tornado. It should be so 
 with us not only in the simple daily duties, but 
 in all things up to the most intense activity pos- 
 sible to man. And this study and realization of 
 Nature's method which I am pleading for brings 
 a vivid sense of our own want of repose. The 
 compensation is fortunately great, or the dis- 
 couragement might be more than could be 
 borne. We must appreciate a need to have it 
 supplied; we must see a mistake in order to 
 shun it. 
 
 How can we expect repose of mind when we 
 have not even repose of muscle? When the 
 most external of the machine is not at our com- 
 mand, surely the spirit that animates the whole 
 cannot find its highest plane of action. Or how 
 can we possibly expect to know the repose that 
 should be at our command for every emergency, 
 or hope to realize the great repose behind every 
 actiqn, when we have not even learned the re- 
 pose in rest? 
 
 Think of Nature's resting times, and see how 
 painful would be the result of a digression.
 
 Natures Teaching. 77 
 
 Our side of the earth never turns suddenly 
 toward the sun at night, giving us flashes of day 
 in the darkness. When it is night, it is night 
 steadily, quietly, until the time comes for day. 
 A tree in winter, its time for rest, never starts 
 out with a little bud here and there, only to be 
 frost bitten, and so when spring-time comes, to 
 result in an uneven looking, imperfectly de- 
 veloped tree. It rests entirely in its time for 
 rest ; and when its time for blooming comes, its 
 action is full and true and perfect. The grass 
 never pushes itself up in little, untimely blades 
 through the winter, thus leaving our lawns and 
 fields full of bare patches in the warmer season. 
 The flowers that close at night do not half close, 
 folding some petals and letting others stay wide 
 open. Indeed, so perfectly docs Nature rest 
 when it is her time for resting, that even the 
 suggestion of these abnormal actions seems ab- 
 solutely ridiculous. The less we allow ourselves 
 to be controlled by Nature's laws, the more we 
 ignore their wonderful beauty; and yet there is 
 that in us which must constantly respond to 
 Nature unconsciously, else how could we at 
 once feel the absurdity of any disobedience to 
 her laws, everywhere except with man? And 
 man, who is not only free to obey, but has ex- 
 quisite and increasing power to realize and enjoy
 
 78 Poiver through Repose. 
 
 them in all their fulness, lives so far out of har- 
 mony with these laws as ever to be blind to his 
 own steady disobedience. 
 
 Think of the perfect power for rest in all 
 animals. Lift a cat when she is quiet, and see 
 how perfectly relaxed she is in every muscle. 
 That is not only the way she sleeps, but the 
 way she rests ; and no matter how great or how 
 rapid the activity, she drops all tension at once 
 when she stops. So it is with all animals, ex- 
 cept in rare cases where man has tampered with 
 them in a way to interfere with the true order 
 of their lives. 
 
 Watch a healthy baby sleeping; lift its arm, its 
 leg, or its head carefully, and you will find each 
 perfectly relaxed and free. You can even hold 
 it on your outspread hands, and the whole little 
 weight, full of life and gaining new power 
 through the perfect rest, will give itself entirely 
 to your hands, without one particle of tension. 
 The sleep that we get in babyhood is the saving 
 health of many. But, alas ! at a very early age 
 useless tension begins, and goes on increasing; 
 and if it docs not steadily lead to acute " Amcri- 
 canitis," it prevents the perfect use of all our 
 powers. Mothers, watch your children with 
 great care, of which they must be unconscious; 
 for a child's attention should seldom be drawn to
 
 Natures Teaching. 79 
 
 its own body. Lead them into Nature's laws, 
 that they may grow up with her, and so be saved 
 the useless suffering, strain, and trouble that 
 comes to us Americans. And besides that, if 
 we do not take care, the children will more and 
 more inherit this fearful misuse of the nervous 
 force, and the inheritance will be so strong that 
 at best we can have only little invalids. How 
 great the necessity seems for the effort to get 
 back into Nature's ways when we reflect upon 
 the possibilities of a continued disobedience ! 
 
 To be sure, Nature has Repose itself and does 
 not have to work for it. Man is left free to take 
 it or not as he chooses. But before he is able 
 to receive it he has personal tendencies to rest- 
 lessness to overcome. And more than that, there 
 are the inherited nervous habits of generations 
 of ancestors to be recognized and shunned. But 
 repose is an inmost law of our being, and the 
 quiet of Nature is at our command much sooner 
 than we realize, if we want it enough to work for 
 it steadily day by day. Nothing will increase our 
 realization of the need more than a little daily 
 thought of the quiet in the workings of Nature 
 and the consequent appreciation of our own 
 lack. Ruskin tells the story with his own ex- 
 pressive power when he says, " Are not the ele- 
 ments of ease on the face of all the greatest
 
 8o Power through Repose. 
 
 works of creation? Do they not say, not there 
 has been a great effort here, but there has been 
 a great power here?" 
 
 The greatest act, the only action which we 
 know to be power in itself, is the act of Creation. 
 Behind that action there lies a great Repose. 
 We are part of Creation, we should be moved 
 by its laws. Let us shun everything we see to 
 be in the way of our own best power of action 
 in muscle, nerve, senses, mind, and heart. Who 
 knows the new perception and strength, the in- 
 creased power for use that is open to us if we 
 will but cease to be an obstruction? 
 
 Freedom within the limits of Nature's laws, 
 and indeed there is no freedom without those 
 limits, is best studied and realized in the growth 
 of all plants, — in the openness of the branch 
 of a vine to receive the sap from the main stem, 
 in the free circulation of the sap in a tree and 
 in all vegetable organisms. 
 
 Imagine the branch of a vine endowed with 
 the power to grow according to the laws which 
 govern it, or to ignore and disobey those laws. 
 Imagine the same branch having made up its 
 vegetable mind that it could live its own life 
 apart from the vine, twisting its various fibres 
 into all kinds of knots and snarls, according 
 to its own idea of living, so that the sap from
 
 Natures Teaching. 8i 
 
 the main stem could only reach it in a mini- 
 mum quantity. What a dearth of leaf, flower, 
 and fruit would appear in the branch! Yet 
 the figure is perfectly illustrative of the way 
 in which most of us are interfering with the 
 best use of the life that is ours. 
 
 Freedom is obedience to law, A bridge 
 can be built to stand, only in obedience to the 
 laws of mechanics. Electricity can be made a 
 useful power only in exact obedience to the 
 laws that govern it, otherwise it is most destruc- 
 tive. Has man the privilege of disobeying nat- 
 ural laws, only in the use of his own individual 
 powers? Clearly not. And why is it that 
 while recognizing and endeavoring to obey 
 the laws of physics, of mechanics, and all other 
 laws of Nature in his work in the world, he so 
 generally defies the same laws in their appli- 
 cation to his own being? 
 
 The freedom of an animal's body in obeying 
 the animal instincts is beautiful to watch. The 
 grace and power expressed in the freedom of a 
 tiger arc wonderful. The freedom in the body 
 of a baby to respond to every motion and ex- 
 pression is exquisite to study. But before most 
 children have been in the world three years their 
 inherited personal contractions begin, and unless 
 the little bodies can be watched and trained out 
 6
 
 S2 Power through Repose. 
 
 of each unnecessary contraction as it appears, 
 and so kept in their own freedom, there comes 
 a time later, when to Hve to the greatest power 
 for use they must spend hours in learning to 
 be babies all over again, and then gain a new 
 freedom and natural movement. 
 
 The law which perhaps appeals to us most 
 strongly when trying to identify ourselves with 
 Nature is the law of rhythm : action, re-action ; 
 action, re-action ; action, re-action, — and the 
 two must balance, so that equilibrium is always 
 the result. There is no similar thought that 
 can give us keener pleasure than when we 
 rouse all our imagination, and realize all our 
 power of identifying ourselves with the work- 
 ings of a great law, and follow this rhythmic 
 movement till we find rhythm within rhythm, — 
 from the rhythmic motion of the planets to the 
 delicate vibrations of heat and light. It is 
 most helpful to make a list of rhythms, and not 
 allow the suggestion of a new rhythm to pass 
 without identifying ourselves with it as fully 
 as our imagination will allow. 
 
 We have the rhythm of the seasons, of day 
 and night, of the tides, and of vegetable and 
 «<nimal life, — as the various rhythmic motions 
 in the flying of birds. The list will be endless, 
 of course, for the great law rules everything
 
 Natures Teaching. 83 
 
 in Nature, and our appreciation of it grows as 
 we identify ourselves with its various modes 
 of action. 
 
 One hair's variation in the rhythm of the uni- 
 verse would bring destruction, and yet we little 
 individual microcosms are knocking ourselves 
 into chronic states of chaos because we feel 
 that we can be gods, and direct our own lives 
 so much better than the God who made us. 
 We are left in freedom to go according to His 
 laws, or against them ; and we are generally 
 so convinced that our own stupid, short-sighted 
 way is the best, that it is only because Nature 
 tenderly holds to some parts of us and keeps 
 them in the rhythm, that we do not hurl our- 
 selves to pieces. This law of rliythin — or of 
 eqniiibriw/i in niotioji and in rest — is the end, 
 aim, and effect of all true physical training for 
 the development and gtiidance of the body. Its 
 ruling power is proved in the very construction 
 of the body, — the two sides ; the circulation 
 of the blood, veins and arteries ; the muscles, 
 extensor and flexor; the nerves, sensory and 
 motor. 
 
 When the long rest of a body balances the 
 long activity, in day and night; when the 
 shorter rests balance the shorter activity, as 
 in the various opportunities offered through
 
 84 Power tJwough Repose. 
 
 the day for entire rest, if only a minute at a 
 time; when the sensory and motor nerves are 
 clear for impression and expression ; when 
 the muscles in parts of the body not needed 
 are entirely quiet, allowing those needed for a 
 certain action to do their perfect work; when 
 the co-ordination of the muscles in use is so 
 established that the force for a movement is 
 evenly divided ; when the flexor rests while 
 its antagonizing muscle works, and vice versa, 
 — when all this which is merely a natural 
 power for actio7i and rest is automatically estab- 
 lished, then the body is ready to obey and will 
 obey the lightest touch of its owner, going 
 in whatever direction it may be sent, artis- 
 tic, scientific, or domestic. As this exquisite 
 sense of ease in a natural movement grows 
 upon us, no one can describe the feeling of 
 new power or of positive comfort which comes 
 with it; and yet it is no miracle, it is only 
 natural. The beasts have the same freedom ; 
 but they have not the mind to put it to higher 
 uses, or the sense to enjoy its exquisite power. 
 Often it seems that the care and trouble to 
 get back into Nature's way is more than com- 
 pensated for in the new appreciation of her laws 
 and their uses. But the body, after all, is 
 merely a servant ; and, however perfect its
 
 Nature's Teaching. 85 
 
 training may have been, if the man, the master, 
 puts his natural power to mean or low uses, 
 sooner or later the power will be lost. Self- 
 conscious pride will establish its own contrac- 
 tions. The use of a natural power for evil 
 ends will limit itself sooner or later. The love 
 for unwholesome surroundings will eventually 
 put a check on a perfectly free body, although 
 sometimes the wonder is that the check is so 
 long in coming. If we have once trained our- 
 selves into natural ways, so akin are the laws 
 of Nature and spirit, both must be obeyed ; 
 and to rise to our greatest power means always 
 to rise to our greatest power for use. " A 
 man's life is God's love for the use for which 
 he was made ; " a man's power lies in the best 
 direction of that use. This is a truth as prac- 
 tical as the necessity for walking on the feet 
 with the head up.
 
 86 Power through Repose. 
 
 XI. 
 THE CHILD AS AN IDEAL. 
 
 WHILE the path of progress in the gaining 
 of repose could not be traced thus far 
 without reference to the freedom of a baby, a 
 fuller consideration of what we may learn from 
 this source must be of great use to us. 
 
 The peace and freshness of a little baby are 
 truly beautiful, but are rarely appreciated. Few 
 of us have peace enough in ourselves to respond 
 to these charms. It is like pla}-ing the softest 
 melody upon a harp to those whose ears have 
 long been closed. 
 
 Let us halt, and watch, and listen, and see 
 what we shall gain ! 
 
 Throughout the muscular system of a normal, 
 new-born baby it is impossible to find any waste 
 of force. An apparent waste will, upon exam- 
 ination, prove itself otherwise. Its cry will at 
 first seem to cause contractions of the face ; but 
 the absolute removal of all traces of contraction 
 as the cry ceases, and a careful watching of the
 
 TJie CJiild as an Ideal. 87 
 
 act itself, show it to be merely an exaggeration 
 of muscular action, not a permanent contraction. 
 Each muscle is balanced by an opposing one; 
 in fact, the whole thing is only a very even 
 stretching of the face, and, undoubtedly, has a 
 purpose to accomplish. 
 
 Examine a baby's bed, and see how distinctly 
 it bears the impression of an absolute giving up 
 of weight and power. They actually do that 
 which we only theorize about, and from them 
 we may learn it all, if we will. 
 
 A babe in its bath gives us another fine op- 
 portunity for learning to be simple and free. It 
 yields to the soft pressure of the water with a 
 repose which is deeply expressive of gratitude; 
 while we, in our clumsy departures from Nature's 
 state, often resist with such intensity as not to 
 know — in circumstances just as simply useful 
 to us — that we have anything for which to be 
 grateful. 
 
 In each new experience we find it the same, — 
 the healthy baby yields, lets himself go, with an 
 case which must double his chances for com- 
 fort. Could wc but learn to do so, our lives 
 would lengthen, and our joys and usefulness 
 strengthen in exact proportion. 
 
 All through the age of unconsciousness, this 
 physical freedom is maintained even where the
 
 88 Power through Repose. 
 
 mental attitude is not free. Baby wrath is as 
 free and economical of physical force as are the 
 winsome moods, and this until the personality 
 has developed to some extent, — that is, until the 
 child reflects the contractiojis of those around him. 
 It expends itself in well-balanced muscular ex- 
 ercise, one set of muscles resting fully in their 
 moment of non-use, while another set takes up 
 the battle. At times it will seem that all wage 
 war together; if so, the rest is equal to the 
 action. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this chapter to recom- 
 mend anger, even of the most approved sort; 
 but if we will express the emotion at all, let us 
 do it as well as we did in our infancy ! 
 
 Channels so free as this would necessitate, 
 would lessen our temptations to such expres- 
 sion ; we, with mature intellects, would see it 
 for what it is, and the next generation of babies 
 would less often exercise their wonderfully bal- 
 anced little bodies in such an unlovely waste. 
 
 Note the perfect openness of a baby throat as 
 the child coos out his expression of happiness. 
 Could anything be more free, more like the 
 song of a bird in its obedience to natural laws? 
 Alas, for how much must we answer that these 
 throats are so soon contracted, the tones changed 
 to so high a pitch, the voice becoming so shrill
 
 The Child as an Ideal. 89 
 
 and harsh ! Can we not open our throats and 
 become as these little children? 
 
 The same openness in the infant organism is 
 the child's protection in many dangers. Falls 
 that would result in breaks, strains, or sprains in 
 us, leave the baby entirely whole save in its 
 " feelings," and often there, too, if the child has 
 been kept in the true state mentally. 
 
 Watch a baby take its food, and contrast it 
 with our own ways of eating. The baby draws 
 it in slowly and evenly, with a quiet rhythm 
 which is in exact accord with the rhythmic ac- 
 tion of its digestive organs. You feel each 
 swallow taken in the best way for repair, and 
 for this reason it seems sometimes as if one 
 could see a baby grow while feeding. There 
 cannot be a lovelier glimpse of innocent physi- 
 cal repose than the little respites from the 
 fatigue of feeding which a baby often takes. 
 His face moist, witli open pores, serene and 
 satisfied, he views the hurry about him as an 
 interesting phase of harmless madness. He is 
 entirely outside of it until self-consciousness is 
 quite developed. 
 
 The sleep of a little child is another oppor- 
 tunity for us to learn what we need. I'^vcry 
 muscle free, every burden dropped, each breath 
 carries away the waste, and fills its place with
 
 90 Power through Repose. 
 
 the needed substance of increasing growth and 
 power. 
 
 In play, we find the same freedom. When 
 one idea is being executed, every other is ex- 
 chided. They do not think dolls while they 
 roll hoop ! They do not think of work while 
 they play. Examine and see how we do both. 
 The baby of one year, sitting on the shore bury- 
 ing his fat hand in the soft warm sand, is for the 
 time being alive only to its warmth and softness, 
 with a dim consciousness of the air and color 
 about him. If we could engross ourselves as 
 fully and with as simple a pleasure, we should 
 know far more of the possible power of our 
 minds for both work and rest. 
 
 It is interesting to watch normal children in 
 these concentrations, because from their habits 
 we may learn so much which may improve our 
 own sadly different manner of living. It is also 
 interesting but pathetic to see the child gradu- 
 ally leaving them as he approaches boyhood, 
 and to trace our part in leading him away from 
 the true path. 
 
 The baby's perfect placidity, caused by men- 
 tal and bodily freedom, is at a very early age 
 disturbed by those who should be his true 
 guides. It would be impossible to say when 
 the first wrong impression is made, but it is so
 
 The Child as an Ideal. 91 
 
 early that a true statement of the time would 
 only be admitted by the scientists ; mothers and 
 fathers in common would scoff at the idea, and 
 deepen the harm at once, by their certainty that 
 they were in this freedom, and that the baby 
 would not know it if they were not 
 
 At the time the pangs of teething begin, it is 
 the same. The healthy child left to itself would 
 wince occasionally at the slight pricking pain, 
 and then turn its entire attention elsewhere, and 
 thus become refreshed for the next trial. But 
 under the adult influence the agony of the first 
 little prick is often magnified until the result is 
 a cross, tired baby, already removed several de- 
 grees from the beautiful state of peace and free- 
 dom in which Nature placed him under our 
 care. 
 
 The bodily freedom of little children is the 
 foundation of a most beautiful mental freedom, 
 which cannot be wholly destroyed by us. This 
 is plainly shown by the childlike trust which 
 they display in all the affairs of life, and also in 
 their excjuisitc responsiveness to the spiritual 
 truths whicii are taught to them. The very ex- 
 l)rcssit)n of face of a little child as it is led by 
 the hand is a lesson to us upon which pages 
 might he wi'ittcn. 
 
 Had we the same spirit dwelling in us, wc
 
 92 Power through Repose. 
 
 more often should feel ourselves led " beside the 
 still waters," and made " to lie down in green 
 pastures." We should grow faster spiritually, 
 because we should not make conflicts for our- 
 selves, but should meet with the Lord's quiet 
 strength whatever we had to pass through. 
 
 Let us learn of these little ones, and help them 
 to hold fast to that which they teach us. Let 
 us remember that the natural and the ideal are 
 truly one, and endeavor to reach the latter by 
 means of the former. 
 
 When through hereditary tendency our little 
 child is not ideal, — that is, natural, — let us 
 with all the more earnestness learn to be quiet 
 ourselves that we may lead him to it, and thus 
 open his channels that health and strength may 
 enter.
 
 Training for Rest, 93 
 
 XII. 
 TRAINING FOR REST. 
 
 BUT how shall we gain a natural repose? 
 It is absurd to cry the necessity without 
 giving the remedy. " I should be so glad to 
 relax, but I do not know how," is the sincere 
 lament of many a nervously strained being. 
 
 There is a regular training which acts upon 
 the nervous force and teaches its proper use, as 
 the gymnasium develops the muscles. This, as 
 will be easily seen, is at first just the reverse of 
 vigorous exercise, and no woman should do 
 powerful muscular work without learning at the 
 same time to guide her body with true economy 
 of force. It is appalling to watch the faces of 
 women in a gymnasium, to see them using five, 
 ten, twenty times the nervous force necessary 
 for every exercise. The more excited they get, 
 the more nervous force they use ; and the hol- 
 lows under their eyes increase, the strained ex- 
 pression comes, and then they wonder that after
 
 94 Poiver through Repose. 
 
 such fascinating exercise they feel so tired. A 
 common sight in gymnasium work, especially 
 among women, is the nervous straining of the 
 muscles of the arms and hands, while exercises 
 meant for the legs alone are taken. This same 
 muscular tension is evident in the arm that 
 should be at rest while the other arm is acting; 
 and if this want of equilibrium in exercise is so 
 strikingly noticeable in the limbs themselves, 
 how much worse it must be all through the less 
 prominent muscles ! To guide the body in 
 trapeze work, every well-trained acrobat knows 
 he must have a quiet mind, a clear head, and 
 obedient muscles. I recall a woman who stands 
 high in gymnastic work, whose agility on the 
 triple bars is excellent, but the nervous strain 
 shown in the drawn lines of her face before she 
 begins, leaves one who studies her carefully 
 always in doubt as to whether she will not get 
 confused before her difficult performance is 
 over, and break her neck in consequence. A 
 realization also of the unnecessary nervous force 
 she is using, detracts greatly from the pleasure 
 in watching her performance. 
 
 If we were more generally sensitive to misdi- 
 rected nervous power, this interesting gymnast, 
 with many others, would lose no time in learning 
 a more quiet and naturally economical guid-
 
 Training for Rest. 95 
 
 ance of her muscles, and gymnasium work 
 would not be, as Dr. Checkley very justly calls 
 it, " more often a straining than a training." 
 
 To aim a gun and hit the mark, a quiet con- 
 trol of the muscles is necessary. If the purpose 
 of our actions were as well defined as the bull's 
 eye of a target, what wonderful power in the 
 use of our muscles we might very soon obtain ! 
 But the precision and ease in an average motion 
 comes so far short of its possibility, that if the 
 same carelessness were taken as a matter of 
 course in shooting practice, the side of a barn 
 should be an average target. 
 
 Gymnasium work for women would be grand 
 in its wholesome influence, if only they might 
 learn the proper use of the body while they are 
 working for its development. And no gymna- 
 sium will be complete and satisfactory in its re- 
 sults until the leader watches in every motion 
 to obtain the true economy of force, and so a 
 rhythmic action of the muscles, and arranges 
 separate classes for training to that end, that the 
 pui)ils may be brought to a perfectly developed 
 physique. The more I misuse my nervous force, 
 the worse the expenditure will be as the power 
 of my muscle increases; I cannot waste so much 
 force on a jjoorly dcN'cloped muscle as on one 
 that is well Llcvelopcd. ihis does not by any
 
 g6 Power through Repose. 
 
 means argue against the development of muscle ; 
 it argues for its proper use. Where is the good 
 of an exquisitely formed machine, if it is to be 
 shattered for want of control of the motive 
 power ? 
 
 It would of course be equally harmful to train 
 the guiding power while neglecting entirely 
 flabby, undeveloped muscles. The only differ- 
 ence is that in the motions for this training and 
 for the perfect co-ordinate use of the muscles, 
 there must be a certain amount of even, muscu- 
 lar development; whereas although the vigor- 
 ous exercise for the growth of the muscles often 
 helps toward a healthy nervous system, it more 
 often, where the nervous force is misused, ex- 
 aggerates greatly the tension. 
 
 In every case it is equilibrium we are working 
 for, and a one-sided view of physical training is 
 to be deplored and avoided, whether the balance 
 is lost on the side of the nerves or the muscles. 
 
 Take a little child early enough, and watch it 
 carefully through a course of natural rhythmic 
 exercises, and there will be no need for the 
 careful training necessary to older people. But 
 help for us who have gone too far in this tension 
 comes only through patient study. 
 
 So far as I can, I will give directions for 
 gaining the true relaxation. But because
 
 Training for Rest. 97 
 
 written directions are apt to be misunderstood, 
 and so bring discouragement and failure, I will 
 purposely omit all but the most simple means 
 of help; but these I am sure will bring very 
 pleasant effects if followed exactly and with the 
 utmost patience. 
 
 The first care should be to realize how far 
 you are from the ability to let go of your mus- 
 cles when they are not needed ; how far you 
 are from the natural state of a cat when she is 
 quiet, or better still from the perfect freedom of 
 a sleeping baby; consequently how impossible 
 it is for you ever to rest thoroughly. Almost 
 all of us are constantly exerting ourselves to 
 hold our own heads on. This is easily proved 
 by our inability to let go of them. The muscles 
 are so well balanced that Nature holds our 
 heads on much more perfectly than we by any 
 possibility can. So it is with all our muscles ; 
 and to teach them better habits we must lie 
 flat on our backs, and try to give our whole 
 weight to the floor or the bed. The floor is 
 better, for that does not yield in the least to us, 
 and the bed does. Once on the floor, give way 
 to it as far as possible. Every day you will 
 become more sensitive to tension, and every day 
 you will be better able to drop it. While you 
 arc flat on your backs, if you can find some one 
 7
 
 98 Power through Repose. 
 
 to " prove " your relaxation, so much the better. 
 Let your friend lift an arm, bending it at the dif- 
 ferent joints, and then carefully lay it down. See 
 if you can give its weight entirely to the other 
 person, so that it seems to be no part of you, 
 but as separate as if it were three bags of sand, 
 fastened loosely at the wrist, the elbow, and the 
 shoulder ; it will then be full of life without ten- 
 sion. You will find probably, either that you try 
 to assist in raising the arm in your anxiety to 
 make it heavy, or you will resist so that it is 
 not heavy with its own weight but with your 
 personal effort. In some cases the nervous 
 force is so active that the arm reminds one of a 
 lively eel. 
 
 Then have your legs treated in the same 
 way. It is good even to have some one throw 
 your arm or your leg up and catch it ; also to 
 let it^go unexpectedly. Unnecessary tension is 
 proved when the limb, instead of dropping by 
 the pure force of gravity, sticks fast wherever 
 it was left. The remark when the extended 
 limb is brought to the attention of its owner is, 
 "Well, what did you want me to do? You did 
 not say you wanted me to drop it," — which 
 shows the habitual attitude of tension so vividly 
 as to be almost ridiculous ; the very idea being, 
 of course, that you are not wanted to do any-
 
 Training for Rest. 99 
 
 thing but let go, when the arm would drop of its 
 own accord. If the person holding your arm 
 says, " Now I will let go, and it must drop as if 
 a dead weight," almost invariably it will not 
 be the force of gravity that takes it, but your 
 own effort to make it a dead weight ; and it will 
 come down with a thump which shows evident 
 muscular effort, or so slowly and actively as 
 to prove that you cannot let it alone. Constant 
 and repeated trial, with right thought from the 
 pupil, will be certain to bring good results, so 
 that at least he or she can be sure of better 
 power for rest in the limbs. Unfortunately this 
 first gain will not last. Unless the work goes 
 on, the legs and arms will soon be " all tightened 
 up " again, and it will seem harder to let go 
 than ever. 
 
 The next care must be with the head. That 
 cannot be treated as roughly as the limbs. 
 It can be tossed, if the tosser will surely catch it 
 on his open hand. Never let it drop with 
 its full weight on the floor, for the jar of the 
 fall, if you are perfectly relaxed, is unpleas- 
 ant ; if you are tense, it is dangerous. At first 
 move it slowly up and down. As with the 
 arms, there will be either resistance or attempted 
 assistance. It seems at times as though it were 
 and always would be impossible to let go of
 
 lOO Power through Repose. 
 
 your own head. Of course, if you cannot give 
 up and let go for a friend to move it quietly up 
 and down, you cannot let go and give way en- 
 tirely to the restful power of sleep. The head 
 must be moved up and down, from side to side, 
 and round and round in opposite ways, gently 
 and until its owner can let go so completely 
 that it seems like a big ball in the hands that 
 move it. Of course care must be taken to 
 move it gently and never to extremes, and it 
 will not do to trust an unintelligent person to 
 " prove " a body in any way. Ladies' maids 
 have been taught to do it very well, but they 
 had in all cases to be carefully watched at first. 
 
 The example of a woman who had for years 
 been an invalid is exceedingly interesting as 
 showing how persistently people " hold on." 
 Although the greater part of her time had been 
 spent in a reclining attitude, she had not learned 
 the very rudiments of relaxation, and could not 
 let go of her own muscles any more easily than 
 others who have always been in active life. 
 Think of holding yourself on to the bed for ten 
 years ! Her maid learned to move her in the 
 way that has been described, and after repeated 
 practice, by the time she had reached the last 
 movement the patient would often be sleeping 
 like a baby. It did not cure her, of course ;
 
 Training for Rest. loi 
 
 that was not expected. But it taught her to 
 " relax " to a pain instead of bracing up and 
 fighting it, and to Hve in a natural way so far 
 as an organic disease and sixty years of mis- 
 used and over-used force would allow. 
 
 Having relaxed the legs and arms and head, 
 next the spine and all the muscles of the chest 
 must be helped to relax. This is more difficult, 
 and requires not only care but greater muscular 
 strength in the lifter. If the one who is help- 
 ing will only remember to press hard on the 
 floor with the feet, and put all the effort of 
 lifting in the legs, the strain will be greatly 
 lessened. 
 
 Take hold of the hands and lift the patient 
 or pupil to a sitting attitude. Here, of course, 
 if the muscles that hold the head are perfectly 
 relaxed, the head will drop back from its own 
 weight. Then, in letting the body back again, 
 of course, keep hold of the hands, — never let 
 go ; and after it is down, if the neck has re- 
 mained relaxed, the head will be back in a 
 most uncomfortable attitude, and must be lifted 
 and placed in the right position. It is some 
 time before relaxation is so complete as that. 
 At first the head and spine will come up like 
 a ramrod, perfectly rigid and stiff. There will 
 be the same effort cither to assist or resist; the
 
 I02 Power through Repose. 
 
 same disinclination to give up ; often the same 
 remark, " If you will tell me what you want 
 me to do, I will do it;" the same inability to 
 realize that the remark, and the feeling that 
 prompts it, are entirely opposed to the prin- 
 ciple that you are wanted to do nothmg, and to 
 do nothing with an effort is impossible. In lower- 
 ing the body it must '* give " like a bag of bones 
 fastened loosely together and well padded. 
 Sometimes when it is nearly down, one arm can 
 be dropped, and the body let down the rest of the 
 way by the other. Then if it is simply giving 
 way completely to the laws of gravity, it Vv'ill 
 fall over on the side that is not held, and only 
 roll on its back as the other arm is dropped. 
 Care must always be taken to arrange the head 
 comfortably after the body is resting on the 
 ground. Sometimes great help is given toward 
 relaxing the muscles of the chest and spine 
 by pushing the body up as if to roll it over, 
 first one side and then the other, and letting it 
 roll back from its own weight. It is always 
 good, after helping the separate parts to a rest- 
 ful state, to take the whole machine and roll it 
 over and over, carefully, and see if the owner 
 can let you do so without the slightest effort to 
 assist. It will be easily seen that the power 
 once gained, of remaining perfectly passive
 
 Training for Rest. 103 
 
 while another moves you, means a steadily in- 
 creasing ability to relax at all times when the 
 body should be given to perfect rest. This 
 power to " let go " causes an increasing sensi- 
 tiveness to all tension, which, unpleasant as it 
 always is to find mistakes of any kind in our- 
 selves, brings a very happy result in the end ; for 
 we can never shun evils, physical or spiritual, 
 until we have recognized them fully, and every 
 mistaken way of using our machine, when 
 studiously avoided, brings us nearer to that 
 beautiful unconscious use of it which makes 
 it possible for us to forget it entirely in giving 
 it the more truly to its highest use. 
 
 After having been helped in some degree by 
 another, and often without that preliminary 
 help, come the motions by which we are en- 
 abled to free ourselves ; and it is interesting to 
 see how much more easily the body will move 
 after following this course of exercises. Take 
 the same attitude on the floor, giving up entirely 
 in every part to the force of gravity, and keep 
 your eyes closed through the whole process. 
 Then stop and imagine yourself heavy. First 
 think one leg heavy, then the other, then each 
 arm, and both arms, being sure to keep the same 
 weight in the legs ; then your body and head. 
 Use your imagination to the full extent of its
 
 104 Power through Repose. 
 
 power, and think the whole machine heavy; 
 wonder how the floor can hold such a weight. 
 Begin then to take a deep breath. Inhale 
 through the nose quietly and easily. Let it 
 seem as if the lungs expanded themselves with- 
 out voluntary effort on your part. Fill first the 
 lower lungs and then the upper. Let go, and 
 exhale the air with a sense of relief. As the 
 air leaves your lungs, try to let your body rest 
 back on the floor more heavily, as a rubber bag 
 would if the air were allowed to escape from it. 
 Repeat this breathing exercise several times ; 
 then inhale and exhale rhythmically, with 
 breaths long enough to give about six to a 
 minute, for ten times, increasing the number 
 every day until you reach fifty. This eventu- 
 ally will establish the habit of longer breaths in 
 the regular unconscious movement of our lungs, 
 which is most helpful to a wholesome physical 
 state. The directions for deep breathing should 
 be carefully followed in the deep breaths taken 
 after each motion. After the deep breathing, 
 drag your leg up slowly, very slowly, try-ing to 
 have no effort except in the hip joint, allowing 
 the knee to bend, and dragging the heel heavily 
 along the floor, until it is up so far that the 
 sole of the foot touches without effort on your 
 part. Stop occasionally in the motion and let
 
 Training for Rest. 105 
 
 the weight come into the heel, then drag the 
 foot with less effort than before, — so will the 
 strain of movement be steadily decreased. Let 
 the leg slip slowly down, and when it is nearly 
 flat on the floor again, let go, so that it gives 
 entirely and drops from its own weight. If it 
 is perfectly free, there is a pleasant little spring 
 from the impetus of dropping, which is more 
 or less according to the healthful state of the 
 body. The same motion must be repeated 
 with the other leg. Every movement should 
 be slower each day. It is well to repeat the 
 movements of the legs for three times, trying 
 each time to move more slowly, with the leg 
 heavier than the time before. After this, lift 
 the arm slowly from the shoulder, letting the 
 hand hang over until it is perpendicular to the 
 floor. Be careful to think the arm heavy, and 
 the motive power in the shoulder. It helps 
 to relax if you imagine your arm held to the 
 shoulder by a single hair, and that if you move 
 it with a force beyond the minimum needed to 
 raise it, it will drop off entirely. To those who 
 have little or no imagination this will seem 
 ridiculous ; to others who have more, and can 
 direct it usefully, this and similar ways will be 
 very helpful. After the arm is raised to a 
 perpendicular position, let the force of gravitjl
 
 io6 Power through Repose. 
 
 have it, — first the upper arm to the elbow, and 
 then the forearm and hand, so that it falls by 
 pieces. Follow the same motion with the other 
 arm, and repeat this three times, trying to 
 improve with each repetition. 
 
 Next, the head must be moved slowly, — so 
 slowly that it seems as though it hardly moved 
 at all, — first rolled to the left, then back and 
 to the right and back again ; and this also can 
 be repeated three times. After each of the 
 above motions there should be two or three 
 long, quiet breaths. To free the spine, sit up on 
 the floor, and with heavy arms and legs, head 
 dropped forward, let it go back slowly and 
 easily, as if the vertebrae were beads on a string, 
 and first one bead lay flat, then another and 
 another, until the whole string rests on the 
 floor, and the head falls back with its own 
 weight. This should be practised over and 
 over before the movement can be perfectly 
 free ; and it is well to begin on the bed, until 
 you catch the idea and its true application. 
 After, and sometimes before, the process of slow 
 motions, rolling over loosely on one side should 
 be practised, — remaining there until the weight 
 all seems near the floor, and then giving way so 
 that the force of gravity seems to flop it back 
 (I use " flop " advisedly) ; so again resting on
 
 Training for Rest. 107 
 
 the other side. But one must go over by regular 
 motions, raising the leg first heavily and letting 
 it fall with its full weight over the other leg, so 
 that the ankles are crossed. The arm on the 
 same side must be raised as high as possible and 
 dropped over the chest. Then the body can 
 be rolled over, and carried as it were by the 
 weight of the arm and leg. It must go over 
 heavily and freely like a bag of loose bones, 
 and it helps greatly to freedom to roll over and 
 over in this way. 
 
 Long breaths, taken deeply and quietly, 
 should be interspersed all through these exer- 
 cises for extreme relaxation. They prevent the 
 possibility of relaxing too far. And as there 
 is a pressure on every muscle of the body 
 during a deep inspiration, the muscles, being 
 now relaxed into freedom, are held in place, 
 so to speak, by the pressure from the breath, — 
 as we blow in the fingers of a glove to put them 
 in shape. 
 
 Remember always that it is equilibrium we 
 are working for, and this extreme relaxation 
 will bring it, because wc have erred so far in 
 the opposite direction. For instance, there is 
 now no balance at all between our action and 
 our rest, because wc are more or less tense and 
 consequently active all through the times when
 
 io8 Power through Repose. 
 
 we should be entirely at rest; and we never 
 can be moved by Nature's rhythm until we learn 
 absolute relaxation for rest, and so gain the true 
 equilibrium in that way. Then again, since we 
 use so much unnecessary tension in everything 
 we do, although we cannot remove it entirely 
 until we learn the normal motion of our mus- 
 cles, still after an hour's practice and the conse- 
 quent gain in extreme relaxation, it will be 
 impossible to attack our work with the same 
 amount of unnecessary force, at least for a 
 time ; and every day the time in which we are 
 able to work, or talk, or move with less tension 
 will increase, and so our bad habits be gradually 
 changed, if not to good, to better ones. So the 
 true equilibrium comes gradually more and 
 more into every action of our lives, and we feel 
 more and more the wholesome harmony of a 
 rhythmic life. We gradually swing into rhythm 
 with Nature through a child-like obedience to 
 her laws. 
 
 Of one thing I must warn all nervous people 
 who mean to try the relief to be gained from re- 
 laxation. The jfirst effects will often be exceed- 
 ingly unpleasant. The same results are apt to 
 follow that come from the reaction after extreme 
 excitement, — all the way from nervous nausea 
 and giddiness to absolute fainting. This, as
 
 Training for Rest. 109 
 
 must be clearly seen, is a natural result from the 
 relaxation that comes after years of habitual 
 tension. The nerves have been held in a chronic 
 state of excitement over something or nothing; 
 and, of course, when their owner for the first 
 time lets go, they begin to feel their real state, 
 and the result of habitual strain must be un- 
 pleasant. The greater the nervous strain at the 
 beginning, the more slowly the pupil should 
 advance, practising in some cases only five 
 minutes a day. 
 
 And with regard to those people who " live 
 on their nerves," not a few, indeed very many, 
 are so far out of the normal way of living that 
 they detest relaxation. A hearty hatred of the 
 relaxing motions is often met, and even when 
 the mind is convinced of the truth of the theory, 
 it is only with difficulty that such people can 
 persuade themselves or be persuaded by others 
 to work steadily at the practice until the desired 
 result is gained. 
 
 " It makes me ten times more nervous than I 
 was before." 
 
 "Oh, no, it docs not; it only makes you 
 realize your nervousness ten times more." 
 
 " Well, then, I do not care to realize my ner- 
 vousness, it is very disagreeable." 
 
 " But, unfortunately, if you do not realize it
 
 no Power through Repose. 
 
 now and relax into Nature's ways, she will knock 
 you hard against one of her stone walls, and you 
 will rebound with a more unpleasant realization 
 of nervousness than is possible now." 
 
 The locomotive engine only utilizes nineteen 
 per cent of the amount of fuel it burns, and in- 
 ventors are hard at work in all directions to 
 make an engine that will burn only the fuel 
 needed to run it. Here is a much more valuable 
 machine — the human engine — burning per- 
 haps eighty-one per cent more than is needed 
 to accomplish its ends, not through the mistake 
 of its Divine Maker, but through the stupid, 
 short-sighted thoughtlessness of the engineer. 
 
 Is not the economy of our vital forces of 
 much greater importance than mechanical or 
 business economy? 
 
 It is painful to see a man — thin and pale from 
 the excessive nervous force used, and from a 
 whole series of attacks of nervous prostration — 
 speak with a superior sneer of " this method of 
 relaxation." It is not a method unless all the 
 laws of Nature are methods. No one invented 
 it, no one planned it; every one can sec, who 
 will look, that it is Nature's way and the only 
 way of living. To call it a new idea or a method 
 is as absurd as if we had carried our tension so 
 far as to forget sleep entirely, and some one
 
 Training for Rest. iii 
 
 should come with this " new method *' of sleep 
 to bring us into a normal state again. Then the 
 people suffering most intensely from want of 
 " tired Nature's sweet restorer " would turn up 
 their nervously prostrated noses at this idea of 
 "sleep." 
 
 Again, there are many, especially women, 
 who insist that they prefer the nervously excited 
 state, and would not lose it. This is like a man's 
 preferring to be chronically drunk. But all these 
 abnormal states are to be expected in abnormal 
 people, and must be quietly met by Nature's 
 principles in order to lead the sufferers back to 
 Nature's ways. Our minds are far enough be- 
 yond our bodies to lead us to help ourselves 
 out of mistaken opinions ; although often the 
 sincere help of others takes us more rapidly over 
 hard ground and prevents many a stumble. 
 
 Great nervous excitement is possible, every 
 one knows, without muscular tension ; therefore 
 in all these motions for gaining freedom and a 
 better physical equilibrium in nerve and muscle, 
 the warning cannot be given too often to take 
 every exercise easily. Do not work at it, go so 
 far even as not to care especially whether you 
 do it right or not, but simply do what is to be 
 done without straining mind or body by effort. 
 It is quite possible to make so desperate an
 
 112 Power through Repose. 
 
 effort to relax, that more harm than good is 
 done. Particularly harmful is the intensity with 
 which an effort to gain physical freedom is 
 made by so many highly strung natures. The 
 additional mental excitement is quite out of pro- 
 portion to the gain that may come from muscu- 
 lar freedom. For this reason it is never 
 advisable for one who feels the need of gaining 
 a more natural control of nervous power to 
 undertake the training without a teacher. If a 
 teacher is out of the question, ten minutes prac- 
 tice a day is all that should be tried for several 
 weeks.
 
 Training for Motion. 113 
 
 XIII. 
 
 TRAINING FOR MOTION. 
 
 " TN every new movement, in every unknown 
 -*- attitude needed in difficult exercises, the 
 nerve centres have to exercise a kind of selection 
 of the muscles, bringing into action those which 
 favor the movement, and suppressing those 
 which oppose it." This very evident truth 
 Dr. Lagrange gives us in his valuable book on 
 the Physiology of Exercise. At first, every 
 new movement is unknown ; and, owing to 
 inherited and personal contractions, almost 
 from the earliest movement in a child's learning 
 to walk to the most complicated action of our 
 daily lives, the nerve centres exercise a mis- 
 taken selection of muscles, — not only select- 
 ing more muscles than are needed for perfect 
 co-ordination of movement, but throwing more 
 force than necessary into the muscles selected. 
 To a gradually increasing extent, the contract- 
 ing force, instead of being withdrawn when 
 the muscle is inactive, remains ; and, as we
 
 114 Power through Repose. 
 
 have already seen, an arm or leg that should 
 be passive is lifted, and the muscles are found 
 to be contracted as if for severe action. To 
 the surprise of the owner the contraction can- 
 not be at once removed. Help for this habitual 
 contraction is given in the preceding chapter. 
 Further on Dr. Lagrange tells us that " Besides 
 the apprenticeship of movements which are 
 unknown, there is the improvement of already 
 known movements." When the work of mis- 
 taken selection of muscles has gone on for 
 years, the " improvement of already known 
 movements," from the simplest domestic action 
 to the accomplishment of very great purposes, 
 is a study in itself. One must learn first to be a 
 grown baby, and, as we have already seen, gain 
 the exquisite passiveness of a baby; then one 
 must learn to walk and to move by a natural 
 process of selection, which, thanks to the con- 
 tractions of his various ancestors, was not the 
 process used for his original movements. This 
 learning to live all over again is neither so 
 frightful nor so difificult as it sounds. Hav- 
 ing gained the passive state described in the 
 last chapter, one is vastly more sensitive to 
 unnecessary tension ; and it seems often as 
 though the child in us asserted itself, rising 
 with alacrity to claim its right of natural move-
 
 Training for Motion. 115 
 
 ment, and with a new sense of freedom in the 
 power gained to shun inherited and personal 
 contractions. Certainly it is a fact that free- 
 dom of movement is gained through shunning 
 the contractions. And this should always be 
 kept in mind to avoid the self-consciousness 
 and harm which come from a studied move- 
 ment, not to mention the very disagreeable 
 impression such movements give to all who 
 appreciate their artificiality. 
 
 Motion in the human body, as well as music, 
 is an art. An artist has very aptly said that 
 we should so move that if every muscle struck 
 a note, only harmony would result. Were it 
 so the harmony would be most exquisite, for 
 the instrument is Nature's own. We see how 
 far we arc from a realization of natural move- 
 ment when we watch carefully and note the 
 muscular discords evident to our eyes at all 
 times. Even the average ballet dancing, which 
 is supposed to be the perfection of artistic 
 movement, is merely a series of pirouettes and 
 gymnastic contortions, with the theatrical smile 
 of a pretty woman to throw the glare of a 
 calcium light over the imperfections and dazzle 
 us. The average ballet girl is not adequately 
 trained, from the natural and artistic standpoint. 
 If this is the case in what should be the quin-
 
 Ii6 Power through Repose. 
 
 tessence of natural, and so of artistic, move- 
 ment, it is to a great degree owing to the 
 absolute carelessness in the selection of the 
 muscles to be used in every movement of 
 daily life. 
 
 Many exercises which lead to the freedom 
 of the body are well known in the letter — not 
 in the spirit — through the so-called " Delsarte 
 system." If they had been followed with a 
 broad appreciation of what they were meant 
 for and what they could lead to, before now 
 students would have realized to a far greater 
 extent what power is possible to the human 
 body. But so much that is good and help- 
 ful in the " Delsarte system " has been mis- 
 used, and so much of what is thoroughly artifi- 
 cial and unhealthy has been mixed with the 
 useful, that one hesitates now to mention 
 Delsarte. Either he was a wonderful genius 
 whose thoughts and discoveries have been 
 sadly perverted, or the inconsistencies of his 
 teachings were great enough to limit the true 
 power which certainly can be found in much 
 that he has left us. 
 
 Besides the exercises already well known, 
 there are many others, made to apply to indi- 
 vidual needs, for gaining the freedom of each 
 part of the body and of the body entire.
 
 Training for Motion. 117 
 
 It is not possible to put them in print clearly- 
 enough to allow one to follow them without a 
 teacher, and be sure of the desired result. In- 
 deed, there would be danger of unpleasant re- 
 sults from a misunderstanding. The object is 
 to stand so that our muscles hold us, with the 
 natural balance given them, instead of trying, as 
 most of us do, to hold our muscles. In poising 
 to gain this natural equilibrium we allow our 
 muscles to carry us forward, and when they 
 have contracted as far as is possible for one set, 
 the antagonizing muscles carry us back. So it is 
 with the side-to-side poising from the ankles, and 
 the circular motion, which is a natural swinging 
 of the muscles to find their centre of equilib- 
 rium, having once been started out of it. To 
 stand for a moment and thijik the feet heavy 
 is a great help in gaining the natural poising 
 motions, but care should always be taken to 
 hold the chest well up. Indeed, we need have 
 no sense of effort in standing, except in raising 
 the chest, — and that must be as if it were pulled 
 up outside by a button in its centre, but there 
 must be no strain in the effort. 
 
 The result of the exercises taken to free the 
 head is shown in the power to toss the head 
 lightly and easily, with the waist muscles, from a 
 dropped forward to an erect position. The
 
 1 1 8 Power through Repose. 
 
 head shows its freedom then by the gentle swing 
 of the neck muscles, which is entirely involun- 
 tary and comes from the impetus given them in 
 tossing the head. 
 
 Tension in the muscles of the neck is often 
 very difficult to overcome; because, among oth- 
 er reasons, the sensations coming from certain 
 forms of nervous over-strain are very commonly 
 referred to the region of the base of the brain. 
 It is not unusual to find the back of the neck 
 rigid in extreme tension, and whether the strain 
 is very severe or not, great care must be taken 
 to free it by slow degrees, and the motions 
 should at first be practised only a few minutes 
 at a time. I can hardly warn readers too often 
 against the possibility of an unpleasant reaction, 
 if the relaxing is practised too long, or gained 
 too rapidly. 
 
 Then should come exercises for freeing the 
 arms ; and these can be taken sitting. Let the 
 arms hang heavily at the sides ; raise one arm 
 slowly, feeling the weight more and more 
 distinctly, and only contracting the shoulder 
 muscles. It is well to raise it a few inches, 
 then drop it heavily and try again, — each time 
 taking force out of the lower muscles by think- 
 ing the arm heavy, and the motive power in 
 the shoulder. If the arm itself can rest heavily
 
 Training for Motion. 119 
 
 on some one's hand while you are still raising 
 it from the shoulder, that proves that you have 
 succeeded in withdrawing the useless tension^ 
 Most arms feel stiff all the way along, when the 
 owners raise them. Your arm must be raised 
 until high overhead, the hand hanging from 
 the wrist and dropped into your lap or down 
 at the side, letting the elbow " give," so that 
 the upper arm drops first, and then the fore 
 arm and hand, — like three heavy sand-bags 
 sewed together. The arm can be brought up 
 to the level of the shoulder, and then round in 
 front and dropped. To prove its freedom, toss 
 it with the shoulder muscles from the side into 
 the lap. Watch carefully that the arm itself 
 has no more tension than if it were a sand-bag 
 hung at the side, and could only be moved by 
 the shoulder. After practising this two or three 
 times so that the arms are relaxed enough to 
 make you more sensitive to tension, one hun- 
 dred times a day you will find your arms held 
 rigidly, while you are listening or talking or 
 walking. Every day you will grow more sen- 
 sitive to the useless tension, and every day gain 
 new power to drop it. This is wherein the real 
 practice comes. An hour or two hours a day 
 of relaxing exercises will amount to nothing if 
 at the same time we are not careful to use the
 
 120 Power through Repose. 
 
 freedom gained, and to do everything more 
 naturally. It is often said, " But I cannot waste 
 time watching all day to see if I am using too 
 much force." There is no need to watch; 
 having once started in the right direction, if you 
 drop useless muscular contraction every time 
 you notice it, that is enough. It will be as 
 natural to do that as for a musician to correct a 
 discord which he has inadvertently made on 
 the piano. 
 
 There are no motions so quieting, so helpful in 
 the general freeing of the body, as the motions of 
 the spine. There are no motions more difficult 
 to describe, or which should be more carefully 
 directed. The habitual rigidity of the spine, 
 as compared with its passible freedom, is more 
 noticeable in training, of course, than is that of 
 any other part of the body. Each vertebra 
 should be so distinctly and individually inde- 
 pendent from every other, that the spine is like 
 the toy snakes, jointed so that we take the tip of 
 the tail with the fingers and the thing waves in 
 all directions. Most of us have spinal columns 
 that more or less resemble ramrods. It is a 
 surprise and delight to find what can be accom- 
 plished with the muscles of the spine and back 
 free and under control. Of course the natural 
 state of the spine, it being the seat of a great
 
 Training for Motion. I2I 
 
 nervous centre, affects many muscles of the 
 body, and the freedom of these muscles again 
 affects the spine. 
 
 The legs are freed for standing and walking 
 by shaking the foot free from the ankle with the 
 leg, swinging the fore leg from the upper leg, 
 and so freeing the muscles at the knee, and by 
 standing on a footstool and letting one leg hang 
 off the stool a dead weight while swinging it 
 round from the hip. Greater freedom and ease 
 of movement can be gained by standing on the 
 floor and swinging the leg from the hip as high 
 as possible. Be sure that the only effort for 
 motion is in the muscles of the hip. There are 
 innumerable other motions to free the legs, and 
 often a great variety must be practised before 
 the freedom can be gained. 
 
 The muscles of the chest and waist are freed 
 through a series of motions, the result of which 
 is shown in the ability to toss the body lightly 
 from the hips, as the head is tossed from the 
 waist muscles ; and there follows the same gentle 
 involuntary swing of the muscles of the waist 
 which surprises one so pleasantly in the neck 
 muscles after tossing the head, and gives a new 
 realization of what physical freedom is. 
 
 In tossing the body the motion must be succes- 
 sive, like running the scale with the vertebra;.
 
 122 Power through Repose. 
 
 In no motion should the muscles work 
 €11 masse. The more perfect the co-ordi- 
 nation of muscles in any movement, the 
 more truly each muscle holds its own in- 
 dividuality. This power of freedom in motion 
 should be worked for after once approaching 
 the natural equilibrium. If you rest on your 
 left leg, it pushes your left hip a little far- 
 ther out, which causes your body to swerve 
 slightly to the right, — and, to keep the bal- 
 ance true, the head again tips to the left >a 
 little. Now rise slowly and freely from that to 
 standing on both feet, with body and head erect ; 
 then drop on the right foot with the body to 
 left, and head to right. Here again, as in the 
 motions with the spine, there is a great differ- 
 ence in the way they are practised. Their 
 main object is to help the muscles to an inde- 
 pendent individual co-ordination, and there 
 should be a new sense of ease and freedom 
 every time we practise it. Hold the chest up, 
 and push yourself erect with the ball of your 
 free foot. The more the weight is thought into 
 the feet the freer the muscles are for action, 
 provided the chest is well raised. The forward 
 and back spinal motion should be taken stand- 
 ing also; and there is a gentle circular motion 
 of the entire body which proves the freedom of
 
 Training for Motion. 123 
 
 all the muscles for natural movement, and is 
 most restful in its result. 
 
 The study for free movement in the arms and 
 legs should of course be separate. The law 
 that every part moves from something prior to 
 it, is illustrated exquisitely in the motion of the 
 fingers from the wrist. Here also the individu- 
 ality of the muscles in their perfect co-ordina- 
 tion is pleasantly illustrated. To gain ease of 
 movement in the fore arm, its motive power 
 must seem to be in the upper arm ; the motive 
 power for the entire arm must seem to be cen- 
 tred in the shoulder. When through various 
 exercises a natural co-ordination of the muscles 
 is gained, the arm can be moved in curves from 
 the shoulder, which remind one of a graceful 
 snake; and the balance is so true that the mo- 
 tion seems hardly more than a thought in the 
 amount of effort it takes. Great care should be 
 given to freeing the hands and fingers. Because 
 the hand is in such constant communication 
 with the brain, the tension of the entire body 
 often seems to be reflected there. Sometimes 
 it is even necessary to train the hand to some 
 extent in the earliest lessons. 
 
 Exercises for movement in the legs are to 
 free the joints, so that motions may follow one 
 another as in the arm, — the foot from the
 
 124 Power through Repose. 
 
 ankle ; the lower leg from the upper leg ; the 
 upper leg from the hip ; and, as in the arm, 
 the free action of the joints in the leg comes as 
 we seem to centre the motive power in the hip. 
 There is then the same grace and ease of move- 
 ment which we gain in the arm, simply because 
 the muscles have their natural equilibrium. 
 
 Thus the motive power of the body will seem 
 to be gradually drawn to an imaginary centre in 
 the lower part of the trunk, — which simply 
 means withdrawing superfluous tension from 
 every part. The exercise to help establish this 
 equilibrium is graceful, and not difficult if we 
 take it quietly and easily, using the mind to hold 
 a balance without effort. Raise the right arm 
 diagonally forward, the left leg diagonally back, 
 — the arm must be way up, the foot just off the 
 floor, so that as far as possible you make a direct 
 line from the wrist to the ankle ; in this attitude 
 stretch all muscles across the body from left to 
 right slowdy and steadily, then relax quite as 
 slowly. Now, be sure your arm and leg are free 
 from all tension, and swing them very slowly, as 
 if they were one piece, to as nearly a horizontal 
 position as they can reach ; then slowly pivot 
 round until you bring your arm diagonally back 
 and your leg diagonally forw^ard ; still horizontal, 
 pivot again to the starting point; then bring leg
 
 Training for Motion. 125 
 
 down and arm up, always keeping them as in a 
 line, until your foot is again off the floor; then 
 slowly lower your arm and let your foot rest on 
 the floor so that gradually your whole weight 
 rests on that leg, and the other is free to swing 
 up and pivot with the opposite arm. All this 
 must be done slowly and without strain of any 
 kind. The motions which follow in sets are for 
 the better daily working of the body, as well as 
 to establish its freedom. The first set is called 
 the " Big Rhythms," because it takes mainly the 
 rhythmic movement of the larger muscles of the 
 body, and is meant, through movements taken 
 on one foot, to give a true balance in the poise 
 of the body as well as to make habitual the 
 natural co-ordination in the action of all the 
 larger muscles. It is like practising a series 
 of big musical chords to accustom our ears to 
 their harmonics. The second set, named the 
 " Little Rhythms," — because that is a con- 
 venient way of designating it, — is a series 
 meant to include the movement of all the 
 smaller muscles as well as the large ones, and is 
 carried out even to the fingers. The third 
 set is for spring and rapid motion, especially in 
 joints of arms and legs. 
 
 Of course having once found the body's natu- 
 ral freedom, the variety of motions is as great
 
 126 Power through Repose, 
 
 as the variety of musical sounds and combina- 
 tions possible to an instrument which will re- 
 spond to every tone in the musical scale. It is 
 in opening the way for this natural motion that 
 the exquisite possibilities in motion purely 
 artistic dawn upon us with ever-increasing light. 
 And as in music it is the sonata, the waltz, or 
 the nocturne we must feel, not the mechanical 
 process of our own performance, — so in mov- 
 ing, it is the beautiful, natural harmonies of the 
 muscles, from the big rhythms to all the smaller 
 ones, that we must feel and make others feel, 
 and not the mere mechanical grace of our 
 bodies ; and we can move a sonata from the first 
 to the last, changing the time and holding the 
 theme so that the soul will be touched through 
 the eye, as it is through the ear now in music. 
 But, according to the present state of the 
 human body, more than one generation will 
 pass before we reach, or know the beginning 
 of, the highest artistic power of motion. If 
 art is Nature illuminated, one must have some 
 slight appreciation and experience of Nature 
 before attempting her illumination. 
 
 The set of motions mentioned can be only 
 very inadequately described in print. But al- 
 though they arc graceful, because they are 
 natural, the first idea in practising them is that
 
 Trainmg for Motion. 127 
 
 they are a means to an end, not an end in them- 
 selves. For in the big and Httle rhythms and 
 the springing motions, in practising them over 
 and over again we are establishing the habit 
 of natural motion, and will carry it more and 
 more into everything we do. 
 
 If the work of the brain in muscular exercise 
 were reduced to its minimum, the consequent 
 benefit from all exercise would greatly increase. 
 
 A new movement can be learned with facility 
 in proportion to the power for dropping at the 
 time all impressions of previous movements. 
 In training to take every motion easily, after 
 a time the brain-work is relieved, for we move 
 with ease, — that is, with a natural co-ordination 
 of muscles, automatically, — in every known mo- 
 tion ; and we lessen very greatly the mental 
 strain, in learning a new movement, by gaining 
 the power to relax entirely at first, and then, 
 out of a free body, choose the muscles needed, 
 and so avoid the nervous strain of useless mus- 
 cular experiment. 
 
 So far as the mere muscular movement goes, 
 the sensation is that of being well oiled. As 
 for instance, in a natural walk, where the 
 swinging muscles and the standing muscles act 
 and rest in alternate rhythmic action, the chest 
 is held liigh, the side muscles free to move in
 
 128 Power through Repose. 
 
 harmony with the legs, and all the spring in the 
 body brought into play through inclining 
 slightly forward and pushing with the ball of 
 the back foot, the arms swinging naturally with- 
 out tension. Walking with a free body is often 
 one of the best forms of rest, and in the varying 
 forms of motion arranged for practice we are 
 enabled to realize, that " perfect harmony of 
 action in the entire man invigorates every 
 part."
 
 Mind Training. 129 
 
 XIV. 
 MIND TRAINING. 
 
 IT will be plainly seen that this training of 
 the body is at the same time a training of 
 the mind, and indeed it is in essence a training 
 of the will. For as we think of it carefully and 
 analyze it to its fundamental principles, we 
 realize that it might almost be summed up as 
 in itself a training of the will alone. That is 
 certainly what it leads to, and where it leads 
 from. 
 
 Maudsley tells us that " he who is incapable 
 of guiding his muscles, is incapable of concen- 
 trating his mind ; " and it follows by a natural 
 sequence that the highest training for the best 
 use of all the powers given us should begin 
 with the muscles, and so on through the nerves 
 and the senses to the mind, — all by means of 
 the will gradually helping the individual to- 
 ward the removal of all personal contractions 
 in cause and effect- 
 Help a child to use his own ability of gaining 
 free muscles, nerves clear to take impressions 
 9
 
 130 Power through Repose. 
 
 through every sense, a mind open to recognize 
 them, and a will alive with interest in and love 
 for finding the best in each new sensation or 
 truth, and what can he not reach in power of 
 use to others and in his own growth. 
 
 The consistency of creation is perfect. The 
 law that applies to the guidance of the muscles 
 works just as truly in training the senses and 
 the mind. 
 
 A new movement can be learned with facility 
 in proportion to the power of dropping at the 
 time all impressions of previous movements. 
 Quickness and keenness of sense are gained 
 only in proportion to the power of quieting 
 the senses not in use, and erasing previous im- 
 pressions upon the sense which is active at the 
 time. 
 
 True concentration of mind means the ability 
 to drop every subject but that centred upon. 
 Tell one man to concentrate his mind on a 
 difficult problem until he has worked it out, — - 
 he will clinch his fists, tighten his throat, hold 
 his teeth hard together, and contract nobody 
 knows how many more muscles in his body, 
 burning and wasting fuel in a hundred or more 
 places where it should be saved. This is not 
 concentration. Concentration means the focus- 
 sing of a force ; and when the mathematical
 
 Mind Training. 131 
 
 faculty of the brain alone should be at work, 
 the force is not focussed if it is at the same 
 time flying over all other parts of the body in 
 useless strain of innumerable muscles. Tell 
 another man, one who works naturally, to 
 solve the same problem, — he will instinctively 
 and at once " erase all previous impressions " in 
 muscle and nerve, and with a quiet, earnest 
 expression, not a face knotted with useless 
 strain, will concentrate upon his work. The 
 result, so far as the problem itself is concerned, 
 may be the same in both cases ; but the result 
 upon the physique of the men who have under- 
 taken the work will be vastly different. 
 
 It will be insisted upon by many, and, strange 
 as it may seem, by many who have a large 
 share of good sense, that they can work better 
 with this extra tension. " For," the explana- 
 tion is, " it is natural to me." That may be, 
 but it is not natural to Nature; and however 
 difficult it may be at first to drop our own way 
 and adojit Nature's, the proportionate gain is 
 very great in tlie end. 
 
 Normal exercise often stimulates the brain, 
 and b}' promoting more vigorous circulation, 
 and so greater physical actix'it)' all over the body, 
 helps the brain to work more easily. There- 
 fore some men can think better while walkin".
 
 132 Power through Repose- 
 
 This is quite unlike the superfluous strain of 
 nervous motion, which, however it may seem 
 to help at the time, eventually and steadily 
 lessens mental power instead of increasing it. 
 The distinction between motion which whole- 
 somely increases the brain activity and that 
 which is simply unnecessary tension, is not 
 difficult to discern when our eyes are well 
 opened to superfluous efl"ort. This misdirected 
 force seems to be the secret of much of the over- 
 work in schools, and the consequent physical 
 break-down of school children, especially girls. 
 It is not that they have too much to do, it is 
 that they do not know how to study naturally, 
 and with the real concentration which learns 
 the lesson most quickly, most surely, and with 
 the least amount of efl'ort. They study a lesson 
 with all the muscles of the body when only the 
 brain is needed, with a running accompaniment 
 of worry for fear it will not be learned. 
 
 Girls can be, have been, trained out of worry- 
 ing about their lessons. Nervous strain is often 
 extreme in students, from lesson-worry alone; 
 and indeed in many cases it is the worry that 
 tires and brings illness, and not the study. 
 Worry is brain tension. It is partly a vague, 
 unformed sense that work is not being done in 
 the best way which makes the pressure more
 
 Mind Training. 133 
 
 than it need be ; and instead of quietly studying 
 to work to better advantage, the worrier allows 
 herself to get more and more oppressed by her 
 anxieties, — as we have seen a child grow cross 
 over a snarl of twine which, with very little 
 patience, might be easily unravelled, but in 
 which, in the child's nervous annoyance, every 
 knot is pulled tighter. Perhaps we ought hardly 
 to expect as much from the worried student as 
 from the child, because the ideas of how to 
 study are so vague that they seldom bring a 
 realization of the fact that there might be an 
 improvement in the way of studying. 
 
 This possible improvement may be easily 
 shown. I have taken a girl inclined to the mis- 
 taken way of working, asked her to lie on the floor 
 where she could give up entirely to the force 
 of gravity, — then after helping her to a certain 
 amount of passivity, so that at least she looked 
 quiet, have asked her to give me a list of her 
 lessons. Before opening her mouth to answer, 
 she moved in little nervous twitches, apparently 
 every muscle in her body, from head to foot. 
 I stopped her, took time to bring her again to 
 a quiet state, and then repeated the question. 
 Again the nervous movement began, but this 
 time the child exclaimed, " Why, is n't it funny? 
 I cannot think without moving all over ! " Here
 
 134 Power through Repose. 
 
 was the Rubicon crossed. She had become 
 ahve to her own superfluous tension ; and after 
 that to train her not only to think without 
 moving all over, but to answer questions easily 
 and quietly and so with more expression, and 
 then to study with greatly decreased effort, was 
 a very pleasant process. 
 
 Every boy and girl should have this training 
 to a greater or less degree. It is a steady, 
 regular process, and should be so taken. We 
 have come through too many generations of 
 misused force to get back into a natural use of 
 our powers in any rapid way; it must come 
 step by step, as a man is trained to use a com- 
 plicated machine. It seems hardly fair to com- 
 pare such training to the use of a machine, — 
 it opens to us such extensive and unlimited 
 power. We can only make the comparison 
 with regard to the first process of development. 
 
 A training for concentration of mind should 
 begin with the muscles. First, learn to with- 
 draw the will from the muscles entirely. Learn, 
 next, to direct the will over the muscles of one 
 arm while the rest of the body is perfectly free 
 and relaxed, — first, by stretching the arm 
 slowly and steadily, and then allowing it to 
 relax; next, by clinching the fist and drawing 
 the arm up with all the force possible until the
 
 Mind Training. 135 
 
 elbow is entirely bent There is not one person 
 in ten, hardly one in a hundred, who can com- 
 mand his muscles to that slight extent. At 
 first some one must lift the arm that should be 
 free, and drop it several times while the muscles 
 of the other arm are contracting; that will 
 make the unnecessary tension evident. There 
 are also ways by which the free arm can be 
 tested without the help of a second person. 
 
 The power of directing the will over various 
 muscles that should be independent, without 
 the so-called sympathetic contraction of other 
 muscles, should be gained all over the body. 
 This is the beginning of concentration in a true 
 sense of the word. The necessity for returning 
 to an absolute freedom of body before directing 
 the will to any new part cannot be too often 
 impressed upon the mind. Having once 
 "sensed" a free body — so to speak — we are 
 not masters until we gain the power to return 
 to it at a moment's notice. In a second we can 
 " erase previous impressions " for the time ; and 
 that is the foundation, the rock, upon which 
 our house is built. 
 
 Then follows the process of learning to think 
 and to speak in freedom. First, as to useless 
 muscular contractions. Watch children work 
 their hands when reciting in class. Tell them to
 
 136 Power through Repose. 
 
 stop, and the poor things will, with great effort, 
 hold their hands rigidly still, and suffer from the 
 discomfort and strain of doing so. Help them 
 to freedom of body, then to the sense that the 
 working of their hands is not really needed, and 
 they will learn to recite with a feeling of free- 
 dom which is better than they can understand. 
 Sometimes a child must be put on the floor to 
 learn to think quietly and directly, and to follow 
 the same directions in this manner of answering. 
 It would be better if this could always be done 
 with thoughtful care and watching; but as it is 
 inexpedient with large classes, there are quiet- 
 ing and relaxing exercises, sitting and standing, 
 v/hich will bring children to a normal freedom, 
 and help them to grow sensitive to and drop 
 muscular contractions which interfere with ease 
 and direction of thought and expression. Pic- 
 tures can be described, — scenes from Shakes- 
 peare, for instance, — in the child's own words, 
 while taking some relaxing motions. This ex- 
 ercise increases the sensitiveness to muscular 
 contraction ; and unnecessary muscular con- 
 traction, beside something to avoid in itself, 
 makes evident indirect thought. A child must 
 think quietly, to express his thought quietly 
 and directly. The above exercise, of course, 
 cultivates the imaiiination.
 
 Mi7id Training. 137 
 
 In all this work, as clear channels are 
 opened for impression and expression, the fac- 
 ulties themselves naturally have a freer growth. 
 The process of quiet thought and expression 
 must be trained in all phases, — from the slow 
 description of something seen or imagined or 
 remembered, to the quick and correct answer 
 required to an example in mental arithmetic, or 
 any other rapid thinking. This, of course, 
 means a growth in power of attention, — atten- 
 tion which is real concentration, not the strained 
 attention habitual to most of us, and which being 
 abnormal in itself causes abnormal reaction. 
 And this natural attention is learned in the 
 use of each separate sense, — to see, to hear, to 
 taste, to smell, to touch with quick and exact 
 impression and immediate expression, if re- 
 quired, and all in obedience to the natural law 
 of the conservation of human energy. 
 
 With the power of studying freely, comes 
 that of dropping a lesson when it is once well 
 learned, and finding it ready when needed for 
 recitation or for any other use. The tempta- 
 tion to take our work into our play is very 
 great, and often cannot be overcome until 
 we have learned how to " erase all previous im- 
 pressions." The concentration which enables 
 us all through life to be intent upon the one
 
 138 Power through Repose. 
 
 thing wc are doing, whether it is tennis or trigo- 
 nometry, and drop what we have in hand at 
 once and entirely at the right time, free to give 
 our attention fully to the next duty or pleasure, 
 is our saving health in mind and body. The 
 trouble is we are afraid. We have no trust. A 
 child is afraid to stop thinking of a lesson after 
 it is learned, — afraid he will forget it. When 
 he has once been persuaded to drop it, the 
 surprise when he takes it up again, to find it 
 more clearly impressed 'upon his mind, is de- 
 lightful. One must trust to the digestion of a 
 lesson, as to that of a good wholesome dinner. 
 Worry and anxiety interfere with the one as 
 much as with the other. If you can drop a mus- 
 cle when you have ceased using it, that leads 
 to the power of dropping a subject in mind ; as 
 the muscle is fresher for use when you need it, so 
 the subject seems to have grown in you, and your 
 grasp seems to be stronger when you recur to it. 
 The law of rhythm must be carefully followed 
 in this training for the use of the mind. Do not 
 study too long at a time, which makes a natural 
 reaction impossible, and so arrange the work 
 that lessons as far unlike as possible may be 
 studied in immediate succession. We thus help 
 to the healthy reaction of one faculty, by exer- 
 cising another quite different.
 
 Mind Training. 139 
 
 This principle must be inculcated in classes, 
 and for that purpose a regular programme of 
 class work can be followed which aims to bring 
 the best results for all study. 
 
 The first care should be to gain quiet, as 
 through repose of mind and body we cultivate 
 the power to " erase all previous impressions." 
 In class, quiet, rhythmic breathing, with closed 
 eyes, is most helpful for a beginning. The eyes 
 must be closed and opened slowly and gently, 
 not snapped together or apart ; and fifty breaths, 
 a little longer than they would naturally be, are 
 enough to quiet a class. The breaths must be 
 counted, to keep the mind from wandering, and 
 the faces must be watched very carefully, for 
 the expression often shows anything but quiet. 
 For this reason it is necessary, in initiating a 
 class, to begin with simple relaxing motions ; 
 later these motions will follow the breathing. 
 Then follow exercises for directing the muscles. 
 The force is directed into one arm with the rest 
 of the body free, and so in various simple exer- 
 cises the power of directing the will only to the 
 muscles needed is cultivated. After the mus- 
 cle-work, the pupils are asked to centre their 
 minds for a minute on one subject, — the subject 
 to be chosen by some member, with slight help 
 to lead the choice to something that will be
 
 140 Power tJirongJi Repose. 
 
 suggestive for a minute's thinking. At first it 
 seems impossible to hold one subject in mind 
 for a minute; but the power grows rapidly as 
 we learn the natural way of concentrating, and 
 instead of trying to hold on to our subject, al- 
 low the subject to hold us by refusing entrance 
 to every other thought. In the latter case one 
 suggestion follows another with an ease and 
 pleasantness which reminds one of walking 
 through new paths and seeing on every side 
 something fresh and unexpected. Then the 
 class is asked to think of a list of flowers, trees, 
 countries, authors, painters, or whatever may be 
 suggested, and see who can think of the greatest 
 number in one minute. At first, the mind will trip 
 and creak and hesitate over the work, but with 
 practice the list comes steadily and easily. Then 
 follow exercises for quickness and exactness of 
 sight, then for hearing, and finally for the mem- 
 ory. All through this process, by constant help 
 and suggestion, the pupils are brought to the 
 natural concentration. With regard to the mem- 
 ory, especial care should be taken, for the harm 
 done by a mechanical training of the memory 
 can hardly be computed. Repose and the con- 
 sequent freedom of body and mind lead to an 
 opening of all the faculties for better use ; if 
 that is so, a teacher must be more than ever
 
 Mind Training. 141 
 
 alive to lead pupils to the spirit of all they are 
 to learn, and make the letter in every sense 
 suggestive of the spirit. First, care should be 
 taken to give something worth memorizing ; 
 secondly, ideas must be memorized before the 
 words. A word is a symbol, and so far as we 
 have the habit of regarding it as such, will each 
 word we hear be more and more suggestive to 
 us. With this habit well cultivated, one sees 
 more in a single glance at a poem than many 
 could see in several readings. Yet the reader 
 who sees the most may be unable to repeat the 
 poem word for word. In cultivating the mem- 
 ory, the training should be first for the attention, 
 then for the imagination and the power of sug- 
 gestive thought; and from the opening of these 
 faculties a true memory will grow. The me- 
 chanical power of repeating after once hearing 
 so many words is a thing in itself to be dreaded. 
 Let the pupil first see in mind a series of 
 pictures as the poem or page is read, then de- 
 scribe them in his own words, and if the words 
 of the author are well worth remembering the 
 pupil should be led to them from the ideas. 
 In the same way a scries of interesting or helpful 
 thoughts can be learned. 
 
 This avoidance of mechanism cannot be too 
 strongly insisted upon ; for there can be no
 
 142 Power through Repose. 
 
 training for a wholesome, natural guidance of 
 mind and body, without at the same time rous- 
 ing in the mind an appreciation of the laws of 
 Nature which we obey, and the results of such 
 obedience ; and just so far as we are merely 
 mechanical, the will is dead to its best power.
 
 The Artistic Side. 143 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE ARTISTIC SIDE. 
 
 ALTHOUGH so much time and care are 
 given to the various means of artistic 
 expression, it is a singular fact that compara- 
 tively little attention is given to the use of the 
 very first instrument which should be under 
 command before any secondary instrument can 
 be made perfectly expressive. 
 
 An old artist who thanked his friend for 
 admiring his pictures added: " If you could 
 only see the pictures in my brain. But — " 
 pointing to his brain and then to the ends of 
 his fingers — " the channels from here to here 
 are so long ! " The very sad tone which we 
 can hear in the wail of the painter expresses 
 strongly the deficiencies of our age in all its 
 artistic efforts. The channels are shorter just 
 in proportion to their openness. If the way 
 from the brain to the ends of the fingers is 
 perfectly clear, the brain can guide the ends of 
 the fingers to carry out truly its own aspirations,
 
 144 Power through Repose. 
 
 and the honest expression of the brain will lead 
 always to higher ideals. But the channels cannot 
 be free, and the artist will be bound so long as 
 there is superfluous tension in any part of the 
 body. So absolutely necessary is it for the 
 best artistic expression that the body should 
 throughout be only a servant of the mind, 
 that the more we think of it the more singular 
 it seems that the training of the body to a 
 childlike state is not regarded as essential, and 
 taken as a matter of course, even as we take 
 our regular nourishment. 
 
 The artificial is tension in its many trying 
 and disagreeable phases. Art is freedom, 
 equilibrium, rhythm, — anything and everything 
 that means wholesome life and growth toward 
 all that is really the good, the true, and the 
 beautiful. 
 
 The art is immeasurably greater than we are. 
 If we are free and quiet, the poem, the music, 
 the picture will carry us, so that we are sur- 
 prised at our own expression ; and when we 
 have finished, instead of being personally elated 
 with conceited delight in what we have done, 
 or exhausted with the superfluous effort used, 
 we shall feel as if a strong wind had blown 
 through us and cleared us for better work in 
 the future.
 
 The Artistic Side. 145 
 
 Every genius obeys the true principle. It is 
 because a genius is involuntarily under the law 
 of his art that he is pervaded by its power. But 
 we who have only talent must learn the laws 
 of genius, which are the laws of Nature, and 
 hy careful study and steady practice in shun- 
 ning all personal obstructions to the laws, bring 
 ourselves under their sway. 
 
 Who would wish to play on a stringed instru- 
 ment already vibrating with the touch of some 
 one else, or even with the last touch we our- 
 selves gave it. What noise, what discord, with 
 no possible harmonies ! So it is with our nerves 
 and muscles. They cannot be used for artistic 
 purposes to the height of their best powers 
 while they are tense and vibrating to our own 
 personal states or habits ; so that the first 
 thing is to free them absolutely, and not only 
 keep them free by constant practice, but so train 
 them that they will become perfectly free at a 
 moment's notice, and ready to respond clearly 
 to whatever the heart and the mind want to 
 express. 
 
 The finer the instrument, the lighter the 
 touch it will vibrate to. Indeed it must have 
 a light touch to respond clearly with musi- 
 cal harmonics; any other touch would blur. 
 With a fine piano or a violin, whether the cffict
 
 146 Power tJiroiigh Repose. 
 
 is to be piano ox fortissimo, the touch should 
 be only with the amount of force needed to 
 give a clear vibration, and the ease with which 
 a fortissimo effect is thus produced is astonish- 
 ing. It is only those with the most delicate 
 touch who can produce from a fine piano grand 
 and powerful harmonies without a blur. 
 
 The response in a human instrument to a 
 really light touch is far more wonderful than 
 that from any instrument made by man ; and 
 bodily effort blurs just as much more in pro- 
 portion. The muscles are all so exquisitely 
 balanced in their power for co-ordinate move- 
 ment, that a muscle pulling one way is almost 
 entirely freed from effort by the equalizing 
 power of the antagonizing muscle; and at some 
 rare moments when we have really found the 
 equilibrium and can keep it, we seem to do 
 no more than think a movement or a tone or 
 a combination of words, and they come with 
 so slight a physical exertion that it seems like 
 no effort at all. 
 
 So far are we from our possibilities in this 
 lightness of touch in the use of our bodies, 
 that it is impossible now for most of us to 
 touch as lightly as would, after training, bring 
 the most powerful response. One of the best 
 laws for artistic practice is, " Every day less
 
 The Artistic Side. 147 
 
 effort, every day more power." As the art of 
 acting is the only art where the whole body is 
 used with no subordinate instrument, let us look 
 at that with regard to the best results to be ob- 
 tained by means of relief from superfluous ten- 
 sion. The effects of unnecessary effort are 
 strongly felt in the exhaustion which follows the 
 interpretation of a very exciting role. It is a law 
 without exception, that if I absorb an emotion 
 and allow my own nerves to be shaken by it, 
 I fail to give it in all its expressive power to the 
 audience ; and not only do I fall far short in my 
 artistic interpretation, but because of that very 
 failure, come off the stage with just so much 
 nervous force wasted. Certain as this law is, 
 and infallible as are its effects, it is not only 
 generally disbelieved, but it is seldom thought 
 of at all. I must feel Juliet in my heart, under- 
 stand her with my mind, and let her vibrate 
 clearly across my nerves, to the audience. The 
 moment I let my nerves be shaken as Juliet's 
 nerves were in reality, I am absorbing her my- 
 self, misusing nervous force, preparing to come 
 off the stage thoroughly exhausted, and keeping 
 her away from the audience. The present low 
 state of the drama is largely due to this failure 
 to recognize and practise a natural use of the 
 nervous force. To work uj) an emotion, a most
 
 148 Power tJirough Repose. 
 
 pernicious practice followed by young aspirants, 
 means to work your nerves up to a state of 
 mild or severe hysteria. This morbid, inartis- 
 tic, nervous excitement is training the man or 
 woman to the loss of all emotional control, and 
 so their nerves play the mischief with them, 
 and the atmosphere of the stage is kept in its 
 present state of murkiness. The power to work 
 the nerves up, in the beginning, finally carries 
 them to the state where they must be more 
 artificially urged by stimulants ; and when off 
 the stage there is no control at all. This is 
 all misused and over-used force. There are no 
 schools where the general influence is so abso- 
 lutely morbid and unwholesome, as most of the 
 schools of elocution and acting. 
 
 The methods by which the necessity for 
 artificial stimulants can be overcome are so 
 simple and so pleasant and so immediately 
 effective that it is worth taking the time and 
 room to describe them briefly. Of course the 
 body must be trained to perfect freedom to 
 begin with, and then to freedom in its use. A 
 very simple way of practising is to take the 
 most relaxed attitude possible, and then, with- 
 out changing it, recite zvith all the expression 
 that belongs to it some poem or selection from 
 a play full of emotional power. You will be-
 
 The Artistic Side. 149 
 
 come sensitive at once to any new tension, and 
 must stop and drop it. At first, an hour's 
 daily practice will be merely a beginning over 
 and over, — the nervous tension will be so 
 evident, — but the final reward is well worth 
 working and waiting for. 
 
 It is well to begin by simply inhaling through 
 the nose, and exhaling quietly through the 
 mouth several times; then inhale and exhale 
 an exclamation in every form of feeling you 
 can think of. Let the exclamation come as 
 easily and freely as the breath alone, without 
 superfluous tension in any part of the body. 
 So much freedom gained, inhale as before, and 
 exhale brief expressive sentences, — beginning 
 with very simple expressions, and taking sen- 
 tences that express more and more feeling as 
 your freedom is better established. This prac- 
 tice can be continued until you are able to 
 recite the potion scene in Juliet, or any of 
 Lady Macbeth's most powerful speeches, with 
 an case and freedom which is surprising. This 
 refers only to the voice ; the practice which 
 has been spoken of in a previous chapter brings 
 the same effect in gesture. 
 
 It will be readily seen that this power once 
 gained, no actor would find it necessary to skip 
 every other night, in consequence of the severe
 
 150 Power through Repose. 
 
 fatigue which follows the acting of an emotional 
 role. Not only is the physical fatigue saved, 
 but the power of expression, the power for in- 
 tense acting, so far as it impresses the audience, 
 is steadily increased. 
 
 The inability of young persons to express an 
 emotion which they feel and appreciate heartily, 
 can be always overcome in this way. Relaxing 
 frees the channels, and the channels being open 
 the real poetic or dramatic feeling cannot be 
 held back. The relief is as if one were let out 
 of prison. Personal faults that come from self- 
 consciousness and nervous tension may be often 
 cured entirely without the necessity of drawing 
 attention to them, simply by relaxing. 
 
 Dramatic instinct is a delicate perception of, 
 quick and keen sympathies for, and ability to 
 express the various phases of human nature. 
 Deep study and care are necessary for the best 
 development of these faculties ; but the nerves 
 must be left free to be guided to the true ex- 
 pression, — ^neither allowed to vibrate to the 
 ecstatic delight of the impressions, or in mis- 
 taken sympathy with them, but kept clear as 
 conductors of all the heart can feel and the 
 mind understand in the character or poem to 
 be interpreted. 
 
 This may sound cold. It is not; it is merely
 
 The Artistic Side, 151 
 
 a process of relieving superfluous nervous ten- 
 sion in acting, by which obstructions are re- 
 moved so that real sympathetic emotions can 
 be stronger and fuller, and perceptions keener. 
 Those who get no farther than emotional vibra- 
 tions of the nerves in acting, know nothing 
 whatever of the greatness or power of true 
 dramatic instinct. 
 
 There are three distinct schools of dramatic 
 art, — one may be called dramatic hysteria, the 
 second dramatic hypocrisy. The first means 
 emotional excitement and nervous exhaustion ; 
 the second artificial simulation of a feeling. 
 Dramatic sincerity is the third school, and the 
 school that seems most truly artistic. What a 
 wonderful training is that which might, which 
 ought to be given an actor to help him rise to 
 the highest possibility of his art ! 
 
 A free body, exquisitely responsive to every 
 command of the mind, is absolutely necessary; 
 therefore there should be a perfect physical 
 training. A quick and keen perception to ap- 
 preciate noble thoughts, holding each idea dis- 
 tinctly, and knowing the relations of each idea 
 to the others, must certainly be cultivated ; for 
 in acting, every idea, every word, should come 
 clearly, each taking its own place in the thought 
 expressed.
 
 152 Power through Repose. 
 
 Broad human sympathies, the imaginative 
 power of identifying himself with all phases of 
 human nature, an actor cannot lack if he has an 
 ideal in his profession above the average. This 
 last is quite impossible without broad human' 
 charity ; for " to observe truly you must sympa- 
 thize with those you observe, and to sympathize 
 with them you must love them, and to love 
 them you must forget yourself" And all these 
 requisites — the physical state, the understand- 
 ing, and the large heart — seem to centre in the 
 expression of a well-trained voice, — a voice in 
 which there is the minimum of body and the 
 maximum of soul. 
 
 By training, I always mean a training into 
 Nature. As I have said before, if art is Nature 
 illuminated, we must find Nature before we can 
 reach art. The trouble is that in acting, more 
 than in any other art, the distinction between 
 what is artistic and what is artificial is neither 
 clearly understood nor appreciated ; yet so 
 marked is the difference when once we see it, 
 that the artificial may well be called the hell of 
 art, as art itself is heavenly. 
 
 Sincerity and simplicity are the foundations of 
 art. A feigning of either is often necessary to 
 the artificial, but many times impossible. Al- 
 thoucrh the external effect of this natural train-
 
 The Artistic Side. 153 
 
 ing is a great saving of nervous force in acting, 
 the height of its power cannot be reached but 
 through a simple aim, from the very heart, 
 toward sincere artistic expression. 
 
 So much for acting. It is a magnificent study, 
 and should be more truly wholesome in its ef- 
 fects than any other art, because it deals with 
 the entire body. But, alas ! it seems now the 
 most thoroughly morbid and unwholesome. 
 
 All that has been said of acting will apply 
 also to singing, especially to dramatic singing 
 and study for opera; only with singing even 
 more care should be taken. No singer real- 
 izes the necessity of a quiet, absolutely free 
 body for the best expression of a high note, 
 until having gained a certain physical freedom 
 without singing, she takes a high note and is 
 made sensitive to the superfluous tension all 
 over the body, and later learns to reach the 
 same note with the repose which is natural ; 
 then the contrast between the natural and the 
 unnatural methods of singing becomes most evi- 
 dent, — and not with high notes alone, but with 
 all notes, and all combinations of notes. I speak 
 of the high note first, because that is an extreme ; 
 for with the majority of singers there is always 
 more or less fear when a high note is coming lest 
 it may not be reached easily and with all the
 
 154 Power iJiroiigh Repose. 
 
 clearness which belongs to it. This fear in it- 
 self is tension. For that reason one must learn 
 to relax to a high note. A free body relieves 
 the singer immensely from the mechanism of 
 singing. So perfect is the unity of the body 
 that a voice will not obey perfectly unless the 
 body, as a whole, be free. Once secure in the 
 freedom of voice and body to obey, the song 
 can burst forth with all the musical feeling, and 
 all the deep appreciation of the words of which 
 the singer is capable. Now, it is not unusual to 
 hear a public singer, and feci keenly that with 
 him the mechanism is first. If this freedom 
 is so helpful, indeed so necessary, to reach 
 one's highest power in singing, it is absolutely 
 essential for the operatic stage. With it we 
 should have less of the wooden motion so com- 
 mon to singers in opera. When one is free, 
 physically free, the music seems to draw out the 
 acting. With a great composer and an inter- 
 preter free to respond, the music and the body 
 of the actor are one in their power of expressing 
 the emotions. And the songs without words of 
 the interludes so imbue the spirit of the singer 
 that whether quiet or in motion he seems, 
 through being a living embodiment of the music, 
 to affect the sense of seeing so that it increases 
 the pleasure of hearing.
 
 The Artistic Side. 155 
 
 I am aware that this is ideal. It is not im- 
 possible at least to approach it, — to come much 
 nearer than we do now, when one wants to hear 
 most operas with closed eyes. 
 
 We have considered artistic expression when 
 the human body alone is the instrument. When 
 the body is merely a means to the use of a 
 secondary instrument, a primary training of the 
 body itself is equally necessary. 
 
 A pianist practises for hours to command his 
 fingers and gain a touch which will bring the 
 soul from his music, without in the least realiz- 
 ing that so long as he is keeping other muscles 
 in his body tense, and allowing the nervous force 
 to expend itself unnecessarily in other direc- 
 tions, there never will be clear and open chan- 
 nels from his brain to his fingers; and as he 
 literally plays with his brain, and not with 
 his fingers, free channels for a magnetic touch 
 are indispensable. 
 
 To watch a body give to the rhythm of the 
 music in playing is most fascinating. Although 
 the motion is slight, the contrast between that 
 and a pianist stiff and rigid with superfluous 
 tension is very marked, and the difference in 
 touch when one relaxes to the music with free 
 channels has been very clearly proved. Be- 
 side this, the freedom in mechanism which
 
 156 Power through Repose. 
 
 follows the exercises for arms and hands is 
 strikingly noticeable. 
 
 With the violin, the same physical equilib- 
 rium of motion must be gained ; in fact it is 
 equally necessary in all musical performance, 
 as the perfect freedom of the body is always 
 necessary before it can reach its highest power 
 in the use of any secondary instrument. 
 
 In painting, the freer a body is the more per- 
 fectly the mind can direct it. How often we 
 can see clearly in our minds a straight line or a 
 curve or a combination of both, but our hands 
 will not obey the brain, and the picture fails. It 
 does not by any means follow that with free 
 bodies we can direct the hand at once to what- 
 ever the brain desires, but simply that by 
 making the body free, and so a perfect servant 
 of the mind, it can be brought to obey the 
 mind in a much shorter time and more directly, 
 and so become a truer channel for whatever the 
 mind wishes to accomplish. 
 
 In the highest art, whatever form it may take, 
 the law of simplicity is perfectly illustrated. 
 
 It would be tiresome to go through a list of the 
 various forms of artistic expression ; enough has 
 been said to show the necessity for a free body, 
 sensitive to respond to, quick to obc)-, and 
 open to express the commands of its owner.
 
 Tests. 157 
 
 TESTS. 
 
 ADOPTING the phrase of our forefathers, 
 with all its force and brevity, we say, 
 " The proof of the pudding is in the eating." 
 
 If the laws adduced in this book are Nature's 
 laws, they should preserve us in health and 
 strength. And so they do just so far as we truly 
 and fully obey them. 
 
 Then are students and teachers of these laws 
 never ill, never run down, " nervous," or pros- 
 trated? Yes, they are sometimes ill, sometimes 
 run down and overworked, and suffer the many 
 evil effects ensuing; but the work which has 
 produced these results is much greater and more 
 laborious than would have been possible without 
 the practice of the truths. At the same time 
 their states of illness occur because they obey 
 the laws but in part. In the degree which they 
 obey they will be preserved from the effects of 
 tensity, overstrung nerves, and generally worn- 
 out bodies; and in sickness coming from otlicr 
 causes — mechanical, hereditary, etc. — ^g'lin,
 
 158 Pozvcr tJiroiigJi Repose. 
 
 according to their obedience, they will be held 
 in all possible physical and mental peace, so 
 that the disease may wither and drop like the 
 decayed leaf of a plant. 
 
 As well might we ask of the wisest clergy- 
 man in the land. Do his truths never fail him? 
 Is he ahvays held in harmony and nobility by 
 their power? However great and good the man 
 may be, this state of perfection will never be 
 reached in this world. 
 
 In exact parallel to the spiritual laws upon 
 which all universal truth, of all religions, is 
 founded, are the truths of this teaching of physi- 
 cal peace and equilibrium. As religion applies 
 to all the needs of the soul, so this applies to all 
 the needs of the body. As a man may be con- 
 tinually progressing in nobility of thought and 
 action, and yet find himself under peculiar cir- 
 cumstances tried even to the stumbling point, — 
 so may the student of bodily quiet and equilib- 
 rium, who appears even to a very careful ob- 
 server to be in surprising possession of his 
 forces, under a similar test stumble and fall into 
 some form of the evil effects out of which he 
 has had power to lead others. 
 
 It is important that this parallelism should be 
 recognized, that the unity of these truths may 
 be finally accomplished in the life; therefore
 
 Tests. 159 
 
 we repeat, Is this any more possible than that 
 the full control of the soul should be at once 
 possessed? 
 
 Think of the marvellous construction of the 
 human body, — the exquisite adjustment of its 
 economy. Could a power of control sufficient 
 to apply to its every detail be fully acquired at 
 once, or even in a life-time? 
 
 But when one does fall who has made him- 
 self even partially at one with Nature's way of 
 living, the power of patient waiting for relief is 
 very different. He separates himself from his 
 ailments in a way which without the prepa- 
 ration would be to him unknown. He has, 
 without drug or other external assistance, an 
 anodyne always within himself which he can use 
 at pleasure. He positively experiences that 
 " underneath are the everlasting arms," and 
 the power to experience this gives him much 
 respite from pain. 
 
 Pain is so often prolonged and accentuated by 
 dzvclling ill its memory, living in a self-pity of 
 the time when it shall come again ! The patient 
 who comes to his test with the bodily and 
 mental repose already acquired, cuts off each 
 day from the last, each hour from the last, one 
 might almost say each breath from the last, so 
 strong is his confidence in the renewal of forces
 
 l6o Power through Repose. 
 
 possible to those who give themselves quite 
 trustfully into Nature's hands. 
 
 It is not that they refuse external aid or pre- 
 caution. No; indeed the very quiet within 
 makes them feel most keenly when it is orderly 
 to rest and seek the advice of others. Also it 
 makes them faithful in following every direction 
 which will take them back into the rhythm of 
 a healthful life. 
 
 But while they do this they do not centre 
 upon it. They take the precautions as a means 
 and not as an end. They centre upon that 
 which they have within themselves, and they 
 know that that possible power being in a state 
 of disorder and chaos no one or all of the out- 
 side measures are of any value. 
 
 As patients prepared by the work return into 
 normal life, the false exhilaration, which is a 
 sure sign of another stumble, is seen and avoided. 
 They have learned a serious lesson in economy, 
 and they profit by it. Where they were free 
 before, they become more so ; and where they 
 were not, they quietly set themselves toward 
 constant gain. They work at lower pressure, 
 steadily gaining in spreading the freedom and 
 quiet deeper into their systems, thus lessening 
 the danger of future falls. 
 
 Let us state some of the causes for " break-
 
 Tests, i6i 
 
 ing down," even while trying well to learn 
 Nature's ways. 
 
 F'irst, a trust in one's own capacity for free- 
 dom and quiet. " I can do this, now that I 
 know how to relax." When truly considered, 
 the thing is out of reason, and we should say, 
 " Because I know how to relax, I see that I 
 must not do this." 
 
 The case is the same with the gymnast who 
 greatly overtaxes his muscle, having foolishly 
 concluded that because he has had some train- 
 ing he can successfully meet the test. There is 
 nothing so truly stupid as self-satisfaction ; and 
 these errors, with all others of the same nature, 
 are fruits of our stupidity, and unless shunned 
 surely lead us into trouble. 
 
 Some natures, after practice, relax so easily 
 that they are soon met by the dangers of over- 
 relaxation. Let them remember that it is really 
 equilibrium they arc seeking, and by balancing 
 their activity and their relaxation, and relaxing 
 only as a means to an end, — the end of greater 
 activity and use later, — they avoid any such ill 
 effect. 
 
 As the gymnast can mistake the purpose of his 
 
 muscular development, putting it in the place of 
 
 greater things, regarding it as an end instead of 
 
 a means, — so can he who is training for a better 
 
 U
 
 1 62 Power through Repose. 
 
 use of his nervous force. In the latter case, the 
 signs of this error are a slackened circulation, a 
 loathing to activity, and various evanescent sen- 
 sations of peace and satisfaction which bear no 
 test, vanishing as soon as they are brought to 
 the slightest trial. 
 
 Unless you take up your work with fresh 
 interest and renewed vigor each time after 
 practice, you may know that all is not as it 
 should be. 
 
 To avoid all these mistakes, examine the work 
 of each day and let the next improve upon it. 
 
 If you are in great need of relaxing, take more 
 exercise in the fresh air. If unable to exerc'se, 
 get your balance by using slow and steady 
 breaths, which push the blood vigorously over 
 its path in the body, and give one, to a degree, 
 the effect of exercise. 
 
 Do not mistake the disorders which come at 
 first, when turning away from an unnatural and 
 wasteful life of contractions, for the effects of 
 relaxing. Such disorders arc no more caused by 
 relaxing than are the disorders which beset a 
 drunkard or an opium-eater, upon refusing to con- 
 tinue in the way of his error, primarily caused by 
 the abandonment of his evil habit, even though 
 the appearance is that he must return to it in 
 order to re-establish his pseudo-equilibrium.
 
 Tests. 163 
 
 One more cause of trouble, especially in 
 working without a guide, is the habit of going 
 through the form of the exercises without really- 
 doing them. The tests needed here have been 
 spoken of before. 
 
 Do not separate your way of practising from 
 your way of living, but separate your life entirely 
 from your practice while practising, trying out- 
 side of this time always to accomplish the agree- 
 ment of the two, — that is, live the economy of 
 force that you are practising. You can be just 
 as gay, just as vivacious, but without the 
 fatiguing after-effects. 
 
 As you work to gain the ideal equilibrium, if 
 your test comes, do not be staggered nor dis- 
 mayed. Avoid its increase by at once giving 
 careful consideration to the causes, and drop- 
 ping them. Keep your life quietly to the form 
 of its usual action, as far as you wisely can. If 
 you have gained even a little appreciation of 
 equilibrium, you will not easily mistake and 
 overdo. 
 
 When you find yourself becoming bound to 
 the dismal thought of }'our test and its terrors, 
 free yourself from it every time, by concen- 
 trating upon the weight of your body, or the 
 slowness of the slowest breaths ycju caw draw. 
 Keep yourself truly free, and these feelings of
 
 164 Power tJiroiigh Repose. 
 
 discouragement and all other mental distortions 
 will steadily lose power, until for you they are 
 no more. If they last longer than you think they 
 should, persist in every endeavor, knowing that 
 the after-result, in increased capacity to help 
 yourself and others, will be in exact ratio to your 
 power of persistency without succumbing. 
 
 The only way to keep truly free, and therefore 
 ready to profit by the help Nature always has at 
 hand, is to avoid thought of your form of illness 
 as far as possible. The man with indigestion 
 gives the stomach the first place in his mind; 
 he is a mass of detailed and subdued activity re- 
 volving about a monstrous stomach, — his brain, 
 heart, lungs, and other organs, however orderly 
 they may be, are of no consideration, and are 
 slowly made the degraded slaves of himself and 
 his stomach. 
 
 The man who does not sleep, worships sleep 
 until all life seems sleep, and no life any impor- 
 tance without it. He fixes his mind on not sleep- 
 ing, rushes for his watch with feverish intensity 
 if a nap docs come, to gloat over its brevity or 
 duration, and then wonders that each night 
 brings him no more sleep. 
 
 There is nothing more contracting to mind 
 and body than such idol-worship. Neither 
 blood nor nervous fluid can flow as it should.
 
 Tests. 165 
 
 Let us be sincere in our work, and having 
 gained even one step toward a true equilibrium, 
 hold fast to it, never minding how severely we 
 are tempted. 
 
 We see the work of quiet and economy, the 
 lack of strain and of false purpose, in fine old 
 Nature herself; let us constantly try to do our 
 part to make the picture as evident, as clear and 
 distinct in God's greater creation, — Human 
 Nature.
 
 1 66 Power tJirougJi Repose. 
 
 RESUME. 
 
 TO sum it all up, the nerves are conduc- 
 tors for impression and expression. As 
 channels, they should be as free as Emerson's 
 " smooth hollow tube," for transmission from 
 without in, and from within out. Thus the im- 
 pressions will be clear, and the expressions 
 powerful. 
 
 The perversions in the way of allowing to 
 the nerves the clear conducting power which 
 Nature would give them are, so far as the body 
 is concerned, unnecessary fatigue and strain 
 caused by not resting entirely when the times 
 come for rest, and by working with more than 
 the amount of force needed to accomplish 
 our ends, — thus defying the natural laws of 
 equilibrium and economy. Not only in the 
 ways mentioned do we defy these most powerful 
 laws, but, because of carelessness in nourish- 
 ment and want of normal exercise out of doors, 
 we make the establishment of such equilibrium 
 impossible.
 
 Resumi. 167 
 
 The nerves can never be open channels while 
 the body wants either proper nourishment, the 
 stimulus that comes from open air exercise, 
 perfect rest, or true economy of force in running 
 the human machine. 
 
 The physical training should be a steady 
 shunning of personal perversions until the 
 nervous system is in a natural state, and the 
 muscles work in direct obedience to the will 
 with the exquisite co-ordination which is natu- 
 ral to them. 
 
 The same equilibrium must be found in the 
 use of the mind. Rest must be complete when 
 taken, and must balance the effort in work, — 
 rest meaning often some form of recreation as 
 well as the passive rest of sleep. Economy of 
 effort should be gained through normal concen- 
 tration, — that is, the power of erasing all previ- 
 ous impressions and allowing a subject to hold 
 and carry us, by dropping every thought or 
 effort that interferes with it, in muscle, nerve, 
 and mind. The nerves of the senses must be 
 kept clear through this same ability to drop 
 all previous impressions. 
 
 First in importance, and running all through 
 the previous training, is the use of the will, from 
 which all these servants, mental and physical, 
 receive tlicir orders, — true or otherwise as the
 
 1 68 Power through Repose. 
 
 will itself obeys natural and spiritual laws in 
 giving them. The perversions in the will to 
 be shunned are misuse of muscles by want 
 of economy in force and power of direction; 
 abuse of the nervous system by unwisely 
 dwelling upon pain and illness beyond the 
 necessary care for the relief of either, or by 
 allowing sham emotions, irritability, and all 
 other causes of nervous distemper to over- 
 come us. 
 
 The remedy for this is to make a peaceful 
 state possible through a normal training of the 
 physique ; to realize and follow a wholesome 
 life in all its phases ; to recognize daily more 
 fully through obedience the great laws of life 
 by which we must be governed, as certainly 
 as an engineer must obey the laws of mechan- 
 ics if he wants to build a bridge that will stand, 
 as certainly as a musician must obey the laws 
 of harmony if he would write good music, as 
 surely as a painter must obey the laws of per- 
 spective and of color if he wishes to illuminate 
 Nature by means of his art. 
 
 No matter what our work in life, whether 
 scientific, artistic, or domestic, it is the same 
 body through which the power is transmitted ; 
 and the same freedom in the conductors for 
 impression and expression is needed, to what-
 
 Resuini. 1 69 
 
 ever end the power may be moved, from the 
 most simple action to the highest scientific or 
 artistic attainment. 
 
 Tlic quality of power differs greatly; the 
 results are widely different, but the laws of 
 transmission are the same. So wonderful is the 
 unity of life and its laws ! 
 
 THE END.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB. 
 
 A STORY FOR GIRLS. 
 
 By Helen Campbell. 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. 
 
 " • The What-to-do Club ' is an unpretending story. It introduces as Co • 
 dozen or more village girls of varying ranks. One has had superior opportuni- 
 ties ; another exceptional training; two or three have been 'away to school;' 
 eome are farmers' daughters ; there is a teacher, two or three poor self-support- 
 ers, — in fact, about such an assemblage as any town between New York and 
 Chicago might give us. But while there is a large enough company to furnish a 
 delightful coterie, there is absolutely no social life among them. . . . Town ard 
 country need more improving, enthusiastic work to redeem them from barrenness 
 and indolence. Our girls need a chance to do independent work, to study prac- 
 tical business, to fill their minds with other thoughts than the petty doings of 
 neighbors. A What-to-do Club is one step toward higher village life. It is one 
 itep toward disinfecting a neighborhood of the poisonous gossip which floats like 
 a pestilence around localities which ought to furnish the most desirable homes in 
 our country." — The Chautauquan. 
 
 " 'The What-to-do Club' is a delightful story for girls, especially for New 
 England girls, by Helen Campbell. The heroine of the story is Sybil Waite, the 
 beautiful, resolute, and devoted daughter of a broken-down but highly educated 
 Vermont lawyer. The story shows how much it is possible for a well-trained and 
 determined young woman to accomplish when she sets out to earn her own living, 
 or help others. Sybil begins with odd jobs of carpentering, and becomes an artist 
 in woodwork. She is first jeered at, then admired, respected, and finally loved 
 by a worthy man. The book closes pleasantly with John claiming Sybil as his 
 own. The labors of Sybil and her friends and of the New Jersey ' Busy Bodies,' 
 which are said to be actual facts, ought to encourage many young women to more 
 successful competition in the battles of life." — Golden Rule. 
 
 " In the form of a story, this book suggests ways in which young women 
 may make money at home, with practical directions for so doing. Stories witli a 
 moral are not usually interesting, but this one is an exception to the rule. The 
 narrative is lively, the incidents probable and amusing, the characters well-drawn, 
 ai d the dialects various and characteristic. Mrs. Campbell is a natural story- 
 tel'er, and has the gift of making a tale interesting. Even the recipes for picklus 
 and preserves, evaporating fruits, raising poultry, and keeping bees, are made 
 poetic and invested witli a certain ideal glamour, and we are thrilled and absorberl 
 py an array or ligures of receipts and expenditures, equally with the changeful 
 incidents of llirtation, courtship, and matrimony. Fun and pathos, sense znri 
 sentiment, are mingled througliout, and the combination has resulted in one ol 
 tilt brightest stories of the season." — Woman's yotirtial. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by publishers^ 
 liOBERTS BROTHERS. Boston.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Piihlicatioiis. 
 
 PRISONERS OF POVERTY. 
 
 WOMEN WAGE-WORKERS : THEIR TRADES AND 
 THEIR LIVES. 
 
 By HELEN CAMPBELL, 
 
 VIUTHOR OF " THE WHAT- TO-DO CLUB," " MRS. HERNDON's INCOME," " MISS 
 
 melinda's opportunity," etc. 
 i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 The author writes earnestly and warmly, but without prejudice, and her volume 
 is an eloquent plea for the amelioration of the evils with which she deals. In the 
 present importance into which the labor question generally has loomed, this vol- 
 ume is a timely and valuable contribution to its literature, and merits wide read- 
 ing and careful thought. — Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 She has given us a most effective picture of the condition of New York working- 
 women, because she has brought to the study of the subject not only great care 
 but uncommon aptitude. She has made a close personal investigation, extending 
 apparently over a long time ; she has had the penetration to search many queer 
 and dark corners which are not often thought of by similar explorers ; and we 
 suspect that, unlike too many philanthropists, she has the faculty of winning con- 
 fidence and extracting the truth. She is sympathetic, but not a sentimentalist ; 
 she appreciates exactness in facts and figures ; she can see both sides of a ques- 
 tion, and she has abundant common sense. — A>zy York Tribwte. 
 
 Helen Campbell's '' Prisoners of Poverty" is a striking example of the trite 
 phrase that " truth is stranger than fiction." It is a series of pictures of the lives 
 of women wage-workers in New York, based on the minutest personal inquiry and 
 observation. No work of fiction has ever presented more startling pictures, and, 
 indeed, if they occurred in a novel would at once be stamped as a figment of the 
 brain. . . . Altogether, Mrs. Campbell's book is a notable contribution to the labor 
 literature of the day, and will undoubtedly enlist sympathy for the cause of the op- 
 pressed working-women whose stories do their own pleading. — Sprhi,i;ficld Unioji. 
 
 It is good to see a new book by Helen Campbell. She has written several 
 for the cause of working-women, and now comes her latest and best work, calied 
 " Prisoners of Poverty," on women wage-workers and their lives. It is compiled 
 from a series of jiapers written for the Sunday edition of a New York paper. The 
 author is well qualified to write on these topics, having personally investigated the 
 horrible situation of a vast army of working-women in N ew York, — a rejection of 
 the same conditions that exist in all large cities. 
 
 It is glad tidings to hear that at last a voice is raised for the woman side of these 
 great labor questions that are seething below the surface calm of society. And it 
 is well that one so eloquent and sympathetic as Helen Campbell has spoken in be- 
 lialf of the victims and against the horrors, the injustices, and the crimes that have 
 forced them into conditions of living — if it can be called living — that are worse than 
 death. It is painful to read of these terrors that exist so near our doors, but none 
 the less necessary, for no person of mind or heart can thrust this knowledge aside. 
 It is the first step towards a solution of the labor complications, some of which 
 have assumed foul shapes and colossal proportions, through ignorance, weakness, 
 and wickedness. — Hartford Times. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers. Mailed^ post-paid., on receipt of 
 price, by the publishers, 
 
 \? r\^^^7^:)'TCi TM?r»TtJT7T3C
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers^ Publications. 
 
 BITS OF TALK 
 
 ABOUT HOME MATTERS. 
 
 By H. H. 
 
 Autuor of " Verses," and " Bits of Travel" Squart 
 i8mo. Cloth, red edges. Price, $;.oo. 
 
 " A New Gospel for Mothers. — We wish that every mother In 
 the land would read ' Bits of Talk about Home Matters,' by H. H , and 
 that they wotild read it thoughtfully. The latter suggestion is, however, 
 wholly unnecessary : the book seizes one's thoughts and sympathies, as 
 only startling truths presented with direct earnestness can do. . . . The 
 adoption of her sentiments would wholly change the atmosphere in many 
 a house to what it ought to be, and bring almost constant sunshine and 
 bliss where now too often are storm and misery." — Lawrence {Kansas) 
 Journal. 
 
 " In the little book entitled ' Bits of Talk,' by H. H., Messrs. Roberta 
 Brothers have given to the world an uncommonly useful collection of 
 essays, — useful certainly to all parents, and likely to do good to all chil- 
 dren. Other people have doubtless held as correct views on the subjects 
 treated here, though few have ever advanced them ; and none that we are 
 aware have made them so attractive as they are made by H. H.'s crisp 
 and sparkling style. No one opening the book, even though without rea- 
 son for special interest in its tojjics, could, after a glimpse at its pages, 
 lay it down unread ; and its bright and witty scintillations will f'.x many a 
 precept and establish many a fact. ' Bits of Talk ' is a book that ought 
 to have a place of honor in every household ; for it teaches, not only the 
 true dignity of parentage, but of childhood. As we read it, we laugh and 
 cry with the author, and acknowledge that, since the child is fatlier of 
 the man, in being the champion of childhood, she is the champion of the 
 whole coming race. Great is the rod, but H. H. is not its prophet 1" — ■ 
 i1/*-*. Harriet J'rescott Spofford, in Neivbury/>ort Herald. 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, by the pub- 
 lishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHER,S, Boston'.
 
 MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' HANDBOOKS. 
 
 xMODFRN SOCIETY and Changes in American Society. 
 
 By Julia Ward Howe. i6mo, cloth. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 " Full of thought, of wit, of high purpose and clear expression." — Spring' 
 field Repiblican. 
 
 STUDYING ART ABROAD, and how to do it cheaply, 
 By May Alcott Nieriker. i6nio, cloth. Price 50 cents. 
 
 Practical advice for lady students desirous of studying Art in England, France, 
 or Italy ; points out the best and cheapest route to take, the cheapest and most 
 advantageous way to live, to shop, to study, &c. 
 
 THE STUDY OF POLITICS. By Prof. W. P. Atkin- 
 son. Uniform with " On History and the Study of History," and 
 "On the Right Use of Books." i6mo. Cloth. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 HOW TO TAKE CARE OF OUR EYES. With 
 
 advice to Parents and Teachers in regard to the management of the 
 
 Eyes of Children. By Henry C. Angell, M.D. Third Edition. 
 
 i6mo. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 " If any one thing in the human organism demands special and intelligent 
 care, almost every one will agree that the eye holds that important place." — 
 Providence Journal. 
 
 ON THE RIGHT USE OF BOOKS. A Lecture. By 
 William P. Atkinson, Professor of English and History in the 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. i6mo, cloth. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 " Full of good sense, sound taste, and quiet humor. ... It is the function of a 
 good book not only to fructify, but to inspire." — N. V. Trihate. 
 
 THE ACTOR AND HIS ART. By C. Coquelin, of 
 
 the Comedie Frangaise. Translated from the French by Abby Lang- 
 don Alger. i6mo, cloth. Price, 50 cents. 
 / shall ncjj try to prove tk-.it tlie actor is an artist. 
 
 WHIST ; OR, BUMBLEPUPPY ? ByPEMBRiDGE. From 
 the second London Edition. i6mo. Cloth. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 " We have been rath 'r lengthy in our remarks on this book, as it is the best 
 attempt we have ever seen to shame very bad players into trying to improve, and 
 also because it abounds with most sensible maxims, dressed up in a very amusing 
 and palatable form." — London Field, Jan. 17, iSSo. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on receipt 0/ price, by the publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS Boston.
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 
 THE 
 
 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 
 
 By PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "A Painter's Camp," "Thoughts About Art." "The Un- 
 known River," " Chapters on Animals." 
 
 Square l2mo, cloth, gilt. Price $2.00. 
 
 Prom the Christian Union. 
 
 " In many respects this is a remarkable book, — the last and best productian 
 of a ticeularly well balanced and finely cultured mind. No man whose life waa 
 not lifted above the anxieties of a bread-winning life could have written this work ; 
 which is steeped in that sweetness and light, the virtues of which Mr. Arnold so 
 eloquently preaches. Compared with Mr. Hamerton's former writines, ' Thj 
 
 Intellectual Life' is incomparably his best production But above all, 
 
 and specially as critics, are we charmed with the large impartiality of the writer. 
 Mr- Hamerton is one of those peculiarly fortunate men who have the inclination 
 and means to live an ideal life. From his youth he has lived in an atmosphere 
 of culture and light, moving with clipped wings in a charmed circle of thought. 
 Possessing a peculiarly refined and delicate nature, a passionate love of beauty, 
 and purity and art ; and having the means to gratify his tastes, Mr. Hamerton 
 has held himself aloof from the commonplace routine of life ; and by constant 
 study of books and nature and his fellow men, has so purified his intellect and 
 tempered his judgment, that he is able to view things from a higher platform even 
 than more able men whose natures have been soured, cramped, or influenced b^ 
 the necessities of a laborious existence. Hence the rare impartiality of his deci- 
 sions, the catholicity of his views, and the sympathy with which he can discuss 
 the most irreconcilable doctrines. To read Mr. Hamerton's writings is an intel- 
 lectual luxury. They are not boisterously strong, or exciting, or even very forci- 
 ble ; but they are instinct with the finest feeling, the broadest sympathies, and a 
 philosophic calm that acts like an opiate on the unstrung nerves of the hard- 
 wrought literary reader. Calm, equable, and beautiful, 'The Intellectual Life,' 
 when contrasted with the sensational and half digested clap-trap that forms 9C 
 large a portion of contemporary literature, reminds one of the old picture of the 
 nuns, moving about, calm and self-possessed, through the fighting and blasphem- 
 ing crowds that thronged the beleagjred city." 
 
 "This book is written with perfect singleness of purpose to help othcn 
 cowards an intellectual life," says the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " It is eminently a book of counsel and instruction," says the Boston Pott> 
 A book, which it seems to us will take a permanent place in literatiut, 
 Mys the Ueiti York Daily Mail. 
 
 Sold by all Booksellers, Mailed, postpaid, by the I'ub 
 Uelion, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.
 
 By the author of " The Story of an African FarmP 
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 BY OLIVE SCHREINER. 
 l6tno. Cloth. Portrait of the Author. Price, $1.00. 
 
 Any one who has read " The Story of an African Farm " will need 
 no urging to read Olive Schreiner's " Dreams." It is a collection of 
 allegories of life, as vividly condensed as tales by Maupassant or Coppee, 
 but each opening up a long vista to the imagination. Many of the prob- 
 lems which were outlined in the African romance are dealt with here. 
 In fact, these allegories remind one of an author's commonplace book. 
 Miss Schreiner had thought much and deeply of the mysteries of human 
 life before she poured out her doubts and longings in the African story, 
 and in these dreams we may see the kernel of some of her best work. 
 . . . It is not a book which one may take up, read through at a sitting, 
 and then discard ; but it is a volume that is worthy of study, for it is only 
 after several readings that one comes to appreciate fully the beauty and 
 the effectiveness of one of these allegories of life. — Sati Francisco 
 Chrotiidle. 
 
 Has Miss Schreiner a message to give, the thoughtful reader may 
 well ask. Does all this exquisite art tend to a higher purpose than itself? 
 The question will answer itself. Never was a writer ni deeper sympathy 
 with truth, or more marvellously winged with aspiration Never was 
 there depicted a more earnest sympathy with the life that has lost its 
 hold on good, and wandered from its true course The spiritual signifi- 
 cance is as great as is the intellectual grasp. The human life, the life 
 next beyond this human life, are both sources of inspiration from which 
 she draws. 
 
 The reader will feel indebted to the publishers for giving, as a frontis- 
 piece, a portrait of Miss Schreiner. It is a fine, thoughtful, spiritual 
 face that meets the eye (its expression a little inscrutable), the face of a 
 young and lovely woman who trusts, hopes, believes, and yet — questions 
 life. The book is a treasure for a lifetime. — Sunday Budget. 
 
 The book stands the only one of its kind. It is like seeing visions to 
 read it; and no one can read it understandingly and not be inspired to 
 fresh struggles to attain the true, the good, and the beautiful. — Public 
 Opinion. 
 
 On the whole we should say the book is done in Olive Schreiner's 
 better vein. It contains grand passages, and passages which indicate 
 a struggling, aspiring, rising moral nature, capable of high conceptions 
 and of true, deep insight — IndependetU. 
 
 Tins IS THE ONLY AUTHORIZED K DITION . 
 
 Sold cverynvhcrc. Mailed, postpaid, by the publishers. 
 
 ROBERTS P>ROTHERS, Boston.
 
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