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Power Through Repose by Annie Payson Call
page 19 of 141 (13%)
natural way of listening to music,--people who are musicians through
and through so that the moment they hear a fine strain they are one
with it. Singularly enough the majority of these are fine animals,
most perfectly and normally developed in their senses. When the
intellect begins to assert itself to any extent, then the nervous
strain comes. So noticeable is this, in many cases, that nervous
excitement seems often to be from misdirected intellect; and people
under the control of their misdirected nervous force often appear
wanting in quick intellectual power,--illustrating the law that a
stream spreading in all directions over a meadow loses the force
that the same amount of water would have if concentrated and flowing
in one channel. There are also many cases where the strained nerves
bring an abnormal intellectual action. Fortunately for the saving of
the nation, there are people who from a physical standpoint live
naturally. These are refreshing to see; but they are apt to take
life too easily, to have no right care or thought, and to be
sublimely selfish.

Another way in which the brain is constantly used is through the
eyes. What deadly fatigue comes from time spent in picture
galleries! There the strain is necessarily greater than in
listening, because all the pictures and all the colors are before us
at once, with no appreciable interval between forms and subjects
that differ widely. But as the strain is greater, so should the care
to relieve it increase. We should not go out too far to meet the
pictures, but be quiet, and let the pictures come to us. The fatigue
can be prevented if we know when to stop, and pleasure at the time
and in the memory afterwards will be surprisingly increased. So is
it in watching a landscape from the car window, and in all interests
which come from looking. I am not for one instant condemning the
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