The habit of excessive indulgence in music, for those who are neither performers themselves nor musically gifted enough to take it in a purely intellectual way, has probably a relaxing effect upon the character. One becomes filled with emotions which habitually pass without prompting to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental condition is kept up. The remedy would be, never to suffer one's self to have an emotion at a concert, without expressing it afterwards in some active way. Let the expression be the least thing in the world -- speaking genially to one's aunt, or giving up one's seat in a horsecar, if nothing more heroic offers -- but let it not fail to take place.

-- "Habit," in William James, "The Principles of Psychology" (1890).
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