FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  
ecome after a year or two stale and flat, and that the new opinions seem fresh and vivid. A treatise is indeed required from some trained psychologist on the conditions under which our nervous system shows itself intolerant of repeated sensations and emotions. The fact is obviously connected with the purely physiological causes which produce giddiness, tickling, sea-sickness, etc. But many things that are 'natural,' that is to say, which we have constantly experienced during any considerable part of the ages during which our nervous organisation was being developed, apparently do not so affect us. Our heartbeats, the taste of water, the rising and setting of the sun, or, in the case of a child, milk, or the presence of its mother, or of its brothers, do not seem to become, in sound health, distressingly monotonous. But 'artificial' things, however pleasant at first--a tune on the piano, the pattern of a garment, the greeting of an acquaintance--are likely to become unbearable if often exactly repeated. A newspaper is an artificial thing in this sense, and one of the arts of the newspaper-writer consists in presenting his views with that kind of repetition which, like the phrases of a fugue, constantly approaches, but never oversteps the limit of monotony. Advertisers again are now discovering that it pays to vary the monotony with which a poster appeals to the eye by printing in different colours those copies which are to hang near each other, or still better, by representing varied incidents in the career of 'Sunny Jim' or 'Sunlight Sue.' A candidate is also an artificial thing. If he lives and works in his constituency, the daily vision of an otherwise admirable business man seated in a first-class carriage on the 8.47 A.M. train in the same attitude and reading the same newspaper may produce a slight and unrecognised feeling of discomfort among his constituents, although it would cause no such feeling in the wife whose relation to him is 'natural.' For the same reason when his election comes on, although he may declare himself to be the 'old member standing on the old platform,' he should be careful to avoid monotony by slightly varying his portrait, the form of his address, and the details of his declaration of political faith. Another fact, closely connected with our intolerance of repeated emotional adjustment, is the desire for privacy, sufficiently marked to approach the character of a specific instinct, a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

newspaper

 

repeated

 

artificial

 

monotony

 

constantly

 

connected

 

natural

 

feeling

 
things
 

produce


nervous

 

vision

 

seated

 
business
 

admirable

 
carriage
 
constituency
 
colours
 

copies

 
printing

poster

 

appeals

 

Sunlight

 

candidate

 

career

 

incidents

 

representing

 

varied

 

declaration

 
details

political
 
Another
 
address
 

careful

 

slightly

 

varying

 
portrait
 
closely
 
intolerance
 

approach


marked
 

character

 

specific

 

instinct

 

sufficiently

 

privacy

 

emotional

 

adjustment

 

desire

 

platform