hours of delightful music. There is no exaggeration in saying that
we should be _rested_ after a good concert, if it is not too long.
And yet so upside-down are we in our ways of living, and, through
the mistakes of our ancestors, so accustomed have we become to
disobeying Nature's laws, that the general impression seems to be
that music cannot be fully enjoyed without a strained attitude of
mind and body; whereas, in reality, it is much more exquisitely
appreciated and enjoyed in Nature's way. If the nerves are perfectly
free, they will catch the rhythm of the music, and so be helped back
to the true rhythm of Nature, they will respond to the harmony and
melody with all the vibratory power that God gave them, and how can
the result be anything else than rest and refreshment,--unless
having allowed them to vibrate in one direction too long, we have
disobeyed a law in another way.

Our bodies cannot by any possibility be _free,_ so long as they are
strained by our own personal effort. So long as our nervous force is
misdirected in personal strain, we can no more give full and
responsive attention to the music, than a piano can sound the
harmonies of a sonata if some one is drawing his hands at the same
time backwards and forwards over the strings. But, alas! a
contracted personality is so much the order of the day that many of
us carry the chronic contractions of years constantly with us, and
can no more free ourselves for a concert at a day's or a week's
notice, than we can gain freedom to receive all the grand universal
truths that are so steadily helpful. It is only by daily patience
and thought and care that we can cease to be an obstruction to the
best power for giving and receiving.

There are, scattered here and there, people who have not lost the