rigid in
her hypocrisy. I do not know which was the weaker of the two, probably
the one who was deceiving herself.

But to return to those drawn, strained lines we see on the people about
us. They do not come from hard work or deep thought. They come from
unnecessary contractions about the work. If we use our wills
consistently and steadily to drop such contractions, the result is a
more quiet and restful way of living, and so quieter and more
attractive faces.

This unquietness comes especially in the eyes. It is a rare thing to
see a really quiet eye; and very pleasant and beautiful it is when we
do see it. And the more we see and observe the unquiet eyes and the
unquiet faces the better worth while it seems to work to have ours more
quiet, but not to put on a mask, or be in any other way a hypocrite.

The exercise described in a previous chapter will help to bring a quiet
face. We must drop our heads with a sense of letting every strain go
out of our faces, and then let our heads carry our bodies down as far
as possible, dropping strain all the time, and while rising slowly we
must take the same care to drop all strain.

In taking the long breath, we must inhale without effort, and exhale so
easily that it seems as if the breath went out of itself, like the
balloons that children blow up and then watch them shrink as the air
leaves them.

Five minutes a day is very little time to spend to get a quiet face,
but just that five minutes--if followed consistently--will make us so
much more sensitive to the unquiet that we will sooner or later turn
away from it as by a natural instinct.

CHAPTER XIX

_About Voices_

I KNEW an old German--a wonderful teacher of the speaking voice--who
said "the ancients believed that the soul of the man is here"--pointing
to the pit of his stomach. "I do not know," and he shrugged his
shoulders with expressive interest, "it may be and it may not be--but I
know the soul of the voice is here--and you Americans--you squeeze the
life out of the word in your throat and it is born dead."

That old artist spoke the truth--we Americans--most of us--do squeeze
the life out of our words and they are born dead. We squeeze the life
out by the strain which runs all through us and reflects itself
especially in our voices. Our throats are tense and closed; our
stomachs are tense and strained; with many of us the word is dead
before it is born.

Watch people talking in a very noisy p