Power Through Repose

Annie Payson Call's Power Through Repose is a practical, deeply earnest guide to overcoming the nervous strain that modern life so often normalizes. With unusual clarity, Call argues that many people misuse their bodies through tension, overwork, and ignorance of natural laws, then rely on rest cures, medicines, and other artificial comforts that soothe symptoms without teaching true recovery. Her answer is not quick relief but disciplined retraining: learning to let the body obey the mind, and the mind to obey Nature. Moving from sleep to conversation, listening, walking, waiting, and even exercise, Call shows how fatigue is often self-made by needless muscular effort. She invites readers to recover the easy rest of a child, to think with the brain alone, to speak with economy and naturalness, and to replace anxious strain with calm control. Blending health advice, moral seriousness, and practical exercises, this book offers a hopeful path toward greater strength, pleasure, and bodily freedom. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.