"There is very little difference between one man and another," he
said, "when you go to the bottom of it. But what little there is, is
very important." And the remark certainly applies to this case. The
general over-contraction may be small when estimated in foot-pounds,
but its importance is immense on account of its _effects on the
over-contracted person's spiritual life_. This follows as a necessary
consequence from the theory of our emotions to which I made reference at
the beginning of this article. For by the sensations that so incessantly
pour in from the over-tense excited body the over-tense and excited
habit of mind is kept up; and the sultry, threatening, exhausting,
thunderous inner atmosphere never quite clears away. If you never wholly
give yourself up to the chair you sit in, but always keep your leg- and
body-muscles half contracted for a rise; if you breathe eighteen or
nineteen instead of sixteen times a minute, and never quite breathe out
at that,--what mental mood _can_ you be in but one of inner panting and
expectancy, and how can the future and its worries possibly forsake your
mind? On the other hand, how can they gain admission to your mind if
your brow be unruffled, your respiration calm and complete, and your
muscles all relaxed?
Now what is the cause of this absence of repose, this bottled-lightning
quality in us Americans? The explanation of it that is usually given is
that it comes from the extreme dryness of our climate and the acrobatic
performances of our thermometer, coupled with the extraordinary
progressiveness of our life, the hard work, the railroad speed, the
rapid success, and all the other things we know so well by heart.
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