n at the next desk rises before
her like a black specter. "Oh, I would not mind the work; I could work
all day happily and quietly and go home at night and rest; the work
would be a joy to me compared to this torture of having to live all day
next to that woman."

It is odd, too, and true, that if the woman at the next desk finds that
she is annoying our friend, unconsciously she seems to ferret out her
most sensitive places and rub them raw with her sharp, discourteous
words.

She seems to shirk her own work purposely and to arrange it so that the
woman next her must do the work in her place. Then, having done all in
her power to give the woman next her harder labor, she snaps out a
little scornful remark about the mistakes that have been made.

If she--the woman at the next desk--comes in in the morning feeling
tired and irritable herself, she vents her irritability on her
companion until she has worked it off and goes home at night feeling
much better herself, while her poor neighbor goes home tired out and
weak.

The woman at the next desk takes pains to let little disagreeable hints
drop about others--if not directly in their hearing at least in ways
which she knows may reach them.

She drops hint to others of what those in higher office have said or
appeared to think, which might frighten "others" quite out of their
wits for fear of their being discharged, and then, where should they
get their bread and butter?

All this and more that is frightful and disagreeable and mean may the
woman at the next desk do; or she may be just plain, every-day _ugly._

Every one knows the trying phases of her own working neighbor. But with
all this, and with worse possibilities of harassment than I have even
touched upon, the woman at the next desk is powerless, so far as I am
concerned, if I choose to make her so.

The reason she troubles me is because I resist her. If she hurts my
feelings, that is the same thing. I resist her, and the resistance,
instead of making me angry, makes me sore in my nerves and makes me
want to cry. The way to get independent of her is not to resist her,
and the way to learn not to resist her is to make a daily and hourly
study of dropping all resistances to her.

This study has another advantage, too; if we once get well started on
it, it becomes so interesting that the concentration on this new
interest brings new life in itself.

Resistance in the mind brings contraction in the body. If