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
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