If the air in the theaters were fresher and good seats did not cost so much a good play, well acted, would be better than a good novel.  Sometimes it freshens us up to play a game after the day’s work is over, and for those who love music there is of course the greatest rest in that.  But there again comes in the question of cost.

Why does not some kind soul start concerts for the people where, for a nominal admission, the best music can be heard?  And why does not some other kind soul start a theater for the people where, for a very small price of admission, they can see the best plays and see them well acted?

We have public libraries in all our cities and towns, and a librarian in one large city loves to tell the tale of a poor woman in the slums with her door barred with furniture for fear of the drunken raiders in the house, quietly reading a book from the public library.

There are many similar stories to go with that.  If we had really good theaters and really good concerts to be reached as simply and as easily as the books in our public libraries, the healthy influence throughout the cities would be proportionately increased.  The trouble is that people cater as much to the rich with their ideas of a national theater as the theatrical syndicate itself.

I could not pretend to suggest amusements that would appeal to any or every reader, but I can make my point clear that when one is tired it is healthy to have a change of activity before going to rest.

“Oh,” I hear, “I can’t!  I can’t!  I am too tired.”

I know the feeling.

I have no doubt the man who wrote for nearly two days had a very strong tendency to go right to bed, but he had common sense behind it, and he knew the result would be better if he followed his common sense rather than his inclination.  And so it proved.

It seems very hard to realize that it is not the best thing to go right to bed or to sit and do nothing when one is so tired as to make it seem impossible to do anything else.

It would be wrong to take vigorous physical exercise after great brain or body fatigue, but entire change of attention and gentle exercise is just what is needed, although care should always be taken not to keep at it too long.  Any readers who make up their minds to try this process of resting will soon prove its happy effect.

A quotation from a recent daily paper reads, “‘Rest while you work,’ says Annie Payson Call,”—­and then the editor adds, “and get fired,” and although the opportunity for the joke was probably thought too good to lose, it was a natural misinterpretation of a very practical truth.

I can easily imagine a woman—­especially a tired out and bitter woman—­reading directions telling how to work restfully and exclaiming with all the vehemence of her bitterness:  “That is all very well to write about.  It sounds well, but let any one take hold of my work and try to do it restfully.