bbing the book and clutching it
until she got back to her seat, or, how she might move with exaggerated
laziness take the book up loosely, and drag herself back again. This
illustration represents two extremes, and one, in itself, is as bad as
the other; but, when the habit has been one of unnecessary strain and
effort, the lazy way, practised for a time, will not only be very
restful, but will eventually lead to movement which is quick as well.

To take another example, you may write holding the pen with much more
force than is needful, tightening your throat and tongue at the same
time, or you may drag your pen along the paper and relieve the tendency
to tension in your throat and tongue by opening your mouth slightly and
letting your jaw hang loosely. These again are two extremes, but, if
the habit has been one of tension, a persistent practice of the extreme
of looseness will lead to a quiet mode of writing in which ten pages
can be finished with the effort it formerly took to write one.

Sometimes the habit of needless strain has taken such a strong hold
that the very effort to work quietly seems so unnatural as to cause
much nervous suffering. To turn the corner from a bad habit into a true
and wholesome one is often very painful, but, the first pain worked
through, the right habit grows more and more easy, until finally the
better way carries us along and we take it involuntarily.

For the young woman who felt she had come to the end of her powers, it
was work or die; therefore, when she had become rested enough to see
and understand at all, she welcomed the idea that it was not her work
that tired her, but the way in which she did it, and she listened
eagerly to the directions that should teach her to do it with less
fatigue, and, as an experiment, offered to go back and try the "lazy
way" for a week. At the end of a week she reported that the "lazy way"
had rested her remarkably, but she did not do her work so well. Then
she had to learn that she could keep more quietly and steadily
concentrated upon her work, doing it accurately and well, without in
the least interfering with the "lazy way." Indeed, the better
concentrated we are, the more easily and restfully we can work, for
concentration does not mean straining every nerve and muscle toward our
work,--it means _dropping everything that interferes,_ and strained
nerves and muscles constitute a very bondage of interference.

The young woman went back to he