in the quiet mirror
of the lake, and you are the lake, and you are quiet and refreshed and
rested and ready to get up and go on with your work--to go on with it,
too, better and more quietly than when you left it.

Or, another way to quiet your mind and to let your imagination help you
to a better rest is to float on the top of a turbulent sea and then to
sink down, down, down until you get into the still water at the bottom
of the sea. We all know that, no matter how furious the sea is on the
surface, not far below the surface it is absolutely still. It is very
restful to go down there in imagination.

Whatever choice we may make to quiet our minds and our bodies, as soon
as we begin to concentrate we must not be surprised if intruding
thoughts are at first constantly crowding to get in. We must simply let
them come. Let them come, and pay no attention to them.

I knew of a woman who was nervously ill, and some organs of her body
were weakened very much by the illness. She made-up her mind to rest
herself well and she did so. Every day she would rest for three hours;
she said to herself, "I will rest an hour on my left side, an hour on
my right side, and an hour on my back." And she did that for days and
days. When she lay on one side she had a very attractive tree to look
at. When she lay on the other she had an interesting picture before
her. When she lay on her back she had the sky and several trees to see
through a window in front of the bed. She grew steadily better every
week--she had something to rest for. She was resting to get well. If
she had rested and complained of her illness I doubt if she would have
been well to-day. She simply refused to take the unpleasant sensations
into consideration except for the sake of resting out of them. When she
was well enough to take a little active exercise she knew she could
rest better and get well faster for that, and she insisted upon taking
the exercise, although at first she had to do it with the greatest
care. Now that this woman is well she knows how to rest and she knows
how to work better than ever before.

For normal rest we need the long sleep of night. For shorter rests
which we may take during the day, often opportunity comes at most
unexpected times and in most unexpected ways, and we must be ready to
take advantage of it. We need also the habit of working restfully. This
habit of course enables us to rest truly when we are only resting, and
again the hab