those that have the work to do. It is an unnecessary
brace that means loss of power and useless fatigue. One would think
that the human machine having 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 consequence 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, reflected every action with twice the force
the preacher himself gave,--and then wondered 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 amusing, 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 unconsciously to the victim, will sooner or later
bring 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 exaggeration in saying that we
should be _rested_ after a good 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 ancestors, so accustomed have we become to disobeying Nature's
laws, that the general impression seems to be that music cannot be
fully enjoyed without a strained