comes painful. The constant appeal to the same sense, the
constant requirement of the same reaction, tires the system, and we
long for change as for a relief. If the repeated stimulations are not
very acute, we soon become unconscious of them; like the ticking
of the clock, they become merely a factor in our bodily one, a
cause, as the case may be, of a diffused pleasure or unrest; but they
cease to present a distinguishable object.

The pleasures, therefore, which a kindly but monotonous
environment produces, often fail to make it beautiful, for the
simple reason that the environment is not perceived. Likewise the
hideousness of things to which we are accustomed -- the blemishes
of the landscape, the ugliness of our clothes or of our walls -- do
not oppress us, not so much because we do not see the ugliness as
because we overlook the things. The beauties or defects of
monotonous objects are easily lost, because the objects are
themselves intermittent in consciousness. But it is of some
practical importance to remark that this indifference of
monotonous values is more apparent than real. The particular
object ceases to be of consequence; but the congruity of its
structure and quality with our faculties of perception remains, and
its presence in our environment is still a constant source of vague
irritation and friction, or of subtle and pervasive delight. And this
value, although not associated with the image of the monotonous
object, lies there in our mind, like all the vital and systemic
feelings, ready to enhance the beauty of any object that arouses our
attention, and meantime adding to the health and freedom of our
life -- making whatever we do a little easier and pleasanter for us.
A grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It can quicken
us from without as a fixed hope and affection, or the consciousness
of a right life, can quicken us from within. To humanize our
surroundings is, therefore, a task which should interest the
physicians both of soul and body.

But the monotony of multiplicity is not merely intrinsic in the form;
what is perhaps even of greater consequence in the arts is the fact
that its capacity for association is restricted. What is in itself
uniform cannot have a great diversity of relations. Hence the
dryness, the crisp definiteness and hardness, of those products of
art which contain an endless repetition of the same elements. Their
affinities are necessarily few; they are not fi