son justly. We must yield first and then we
can go back and forth in front of it, and it will only be a reminder to
yield every time until the habit of yielding has become habitual and
the strength of nerve and strength of character developed by means of
the yielding have been established.

Let me explain more fully what I mean by "yielding." Every annoyance,
resistance, or feeling of resentment contracts us in some way
physically; if we turn our attention toward dropping that physical
contraction, with a real desire to get rid of the resistance behind it,
we shall find that dropping the physical strain opens the way to drop
the mental and moral strain, and when we have really dropped the strain
we invariably find reason and justice and even generosity toward others
waiting to come to us.

There is one important thing to be looked out for in this normal
process of freeing ourselves from other people. A young girl said once
to her teacher: "I got mad the other day and I relaxed, and the more I
relaxed the madder I got!"

"Did you want to get over the anger?" asked the teacher.

"No, I didn't," was the prompt and ready answer.

Of course, as this child relaxed out of the tension of her anger, there
was only more anger to take its place, and the more she relaxed the
more free her nerves were to take the impression of the anger hoarded
up in her; consequently it was as she said: the more she relaxed the
"madder" she got. Later, this same little girl came to understand fully
that she must have a real desire to get over her anger in order to have
better feelings come up after she had dropped the contraction of the
anger.

I know of a woman who has been holding such steady hatred for certain
other people that the strain of it has kept her ill. And it is all a
matter of feeling: first, that these people have interfered with her
welfare; second, that they differ from her in opinion. Every once in a
while her hatred finds a vent and spends itself in tears and bitter
words. Then, after the external relief of letting out her pent-up
feeling, she closes up again and one would think from her voice and
manner--if one did not look very deep in--that she had only kindliness
for every one. But she stays nervously ill right along.

How could she do otherwise with that strain in her? If she were
constitutionally a strong woman this strain of hatred would have worn
on her, though possibly not have made her really ill; but, being
na