She sits
complacently in her pose of prompt action, quietness and rest, and
has a tornado all about her. She is so deluded in her own idea of
herself that she does not observe the tornado, and yet she has
caused it. Everybody in her household is tired out with her demands,
and she herself is ill, chronically ill. But she thinks she is at
peace, and she is annoyed that others should be tired.
If this woman could open and let out her own interior tornado, which
she has kept frozen in there by her false attitude of restful quiet,
she would be more ill for a time, but it might open her eyes to the
true state of things and enable her to rest to some purpose and to
allow her household to rest, too.
It seems, at first thought, strange that in this country, when the
right habit of rest is so greatly needed, that the strain of rest
should have become in late years one of the greatest defects. On
second thought, however, we see that it is a perfectly rational
result. We have strained to work and strained to play and strained
to live for so long that when the need for rest gets so imperative
that we feel we must rest the habit of strain is so upon us that we
strain to rest. And what does such "rest" amount to? What strength
does it bring us? What enlightenment do we get from it?
With the little lady of whom I first spoke rest was a
steadily-weakening process. She was resting her body straight toward
its grave.
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