{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12813/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12813","id":"gutenberg_12813","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12813","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Health & Medicine","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Worry"],"text":"QUIT YOUR WORRYING!\n\nBY\n\nGEORGE WHARTON JAMES\n\nAUTHOR OF\n\n\"Living the Radiant Life,\" \"What the White Race may learn from\nthe Indian,\" \"The story of Scraggles,\" \"California, Romantic and\nBeautiful,\" \"Our American Wonderlands,\" etc. etc.\n\nPASADENA, CALIF.\n\n\n1916\n\n\nTO THOSE\n\nwho are standing on the banks of worry before the ocean of God's love\nI cry aloud\n\n\"COME ON IN--THE WATER'S FINE!\"\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nFOREWORD\n\n    I  THE CURSE OF WORRY\n   II  OURS IS THE AGE OF WORRY\n  III  NERVOUS PROSTRATION AND WORRY\n   IV  HOLY WRIT, THE SAGES AND WORRY\n    V  THE NEEDLESSNESS AND USELESSNESS OF WORRY\n   VI  THE SELFISHNESS OF WORRY\n  VII  CAUSES OF WORRY\n VIII  PROTEAN FORMS OF WORRY\n   IX  HEALTH WORRIES\n    X  THE WORRIES OF PARENTS\n   XI  MARITAL WORRIES\n  XII  THE WORRY OF THE SQUIRREL CAGE\n XIII  RELIGIOUS WORRIES AND WORRIERS\n  XIV  AMBITION AND WORRY\n   XV  ENVY AND WORRY\n  XVI  DISCONTENT AND WORRY\n XVII  COWARDICE AND WORRY\nXVIII  WORRY ABOUT MANNERS AND SPEECH\n  XIX  THE WORRIES OF JEALOUSY\n   XX  THE WORRIES OF SUSPICION\n  XXI  THE WORRIES OF IMPATIENCE\n XXII  THE WORRIES OF ANTICIPATION\nXXIII  HOW OUR WORRY AFFECTS OTHERS\n XXIV  WORRY VERSUS INDIFFERENCE\n  XXV  WORRIES AND HOBBIES\n\n\n\n\nJUST BE GLAD\n\nBY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY\n\n\n  _O heart of mine, we shouldn't worry so,\n  What we have missed of calm we couldn't have, you know!_\n\n  _What we've met of stormy pain,\n  And of sorrow's driving rain,\n  We can better meet again,\n        If it blow._\n\n  _We have erred in that dark hour, we have known,\n  When the tear fell with the shower, all alone._\n\n  _Were not shine and shower blent\n  As the gracious Master meant?\n  Let us temper our content\n        With His own._\n\n  _For we know not every morrow\n        Can be sad;\n  So forgetting all the sorrow\n        We have had,\n  Let us fold away our fears,\n  And put by our foolish tears,\n  And through all the coming years,\n        Just be glad._\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nBetween twenty and thirty years ago, I became involved in a series of\noccurrences and conditions of so painful and distressing a character\nthat for over six months I was unable to sleep more than one or two\nhours out of the twenty-four. In common parlance I was \"worrying\nmyself to death,\" when, mercifully, a total collapse of mind and body\ncame. My physicians used the polite euphemism of \"cerebral congestion\"\nto describe my state which, in reality, was one of temporary insanity,\nand it seemed almost hopeless that I should ever recover my health\nand poise. For several months I hovered between life and death, and my\nbrain between reason and unreason.\n\nIn due time, however, both health and mental poise came back in\nreasonable measure, and I asked myself what would be the result if I\nreturned to the condition of worry that culminated in the disaster.\nThis question and my endeavors at its solution led to the gaining of a\ndegree of philosophy which materially changed my attitude toward life.\nThough some of the chief causes of my past worry were removed there\nwere still enough adverse and untoward circumstances surrounding me\nto give me cause for worry, if I allowed myself to yield to it, so I\nconcluded that my mind must positively and absolutely be prohibited\nfrom dwelling upon those things that seemed justification for worry.\nAnd I determined to set before me the ideal of a life without worry.\n\nHow was it to be brought about?\n\nAt every fresh attack of the harassing demon I rebuked myself with the\nstern command, \"Quit your Worrying.\" Little by little I succeeded\nin obeying my own orders. A measurable degree of serenity has since\nblessed my life. It has been no freer than other men's lives from the\nordinary--and a few extraordinary--causes of worry, but I have learned\nthe lesson. I have _Quit Worrying_. To help others to attain the same\ndesirable and happy condition has been my aim in these pages.\n\nIt was with set purpose that I chose this title. I might have selected\n\"Don't Worry.\" But I knew that would fail to convey my principal\nthought to the casual observer of the title. People _will_ worry, they\n_do_ worry. What they want to know and need to learn is how to\nquit worrying. This I have attempted herein to show, with the full\nknowledge, however, that no one person's recipe can infallibly be used\nby any other person--so that, in reality, all I have tried to do is\nto set forth the means I have followed to teach myself the delightful\nlesson of serenity, of freedom from worry, and thereby to suggest\nto receptive minds a way by which they may possibly attain the same\ndesirable end.\n\nIt was the learned and wise Dr. Johnson who wrote:\n\n    He may be justly numbered amongst the benefactors of mankind,\n    who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences,\n    that may easily be impressed on the memory, and taught by\n    frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.\n\nI have no desire to claim as original the title used for these\nobservations, but I do covet the joy of knowing that I have so\nimpressed it upon the memory of thousands that by its constant\nrecurrence it will aid in banishing the monster, worry.\n\nIt is almost unavoidable that, in a practical treatise of this nature,\nthere should be some repetition, both in description of worries and\nthe remedies suggested. To the critical reader, however, let me say:\nDo not worry about this, for I am far more concerned to get my thought\ninto the heads and hearts of my readers than I am to be esteemed a\ngreat writer. Let me help but one troubled soul to quit worrying and I\nwill forego all the honors of the ages that might have come to me had\nI been an essayist of power. And I have repeated purposely, for I\nknow that some thoughts have to knock again and again, ere they are\nadmitted to the places where they are the most needed.\n\nI have written strongly; perhaps some will think too strongly. These,\nhowever, must remember that I have written advisedly. I have been\nconsidering the subject for half or three parts of a life-time. I\nhave studied men and women; carefully watched their lives; talked with\nthem, and seen the lines worry has engraved on their faces. I have\nseen and felt the misery caused by their unnecessary worries. I have\nsat by the bedsides of people made chronic invalids by worry, and I\nhave stood in the cells of maniacs driven insane by worry. Hence I\nhate it in all its forms, and have expressed myself only as the facts\nhave justified.\n\nWherein I have sought to show how one might _Quit his Worrying_, these\npages presuppose an earnest desire, a sincere purpose, on the part\nof the reader to attain that desirable end. There is no universal\nmedicine which one can drink in six doses and thus be cured of his\ndisease. I do not offer my book as a mental cure-all, or nostrum that,\nif swallowed whole, will cure in five days or ten. As I have tried\nto show, I conceive worry to be unnatural and totally unnecessary,\nbecause of its practical denial of what ought to be, and I believe may\nbe, the fundamental basis of a man's life, viz., his perfect, abiding\nassurance in the fatherly love of God. As little Pippa sang:\n\n  God's in his heaven,\n  All's right with the world.\n\nThe only way, therefore, to lose our sense of worry is to get back to\nnaturalness, to God, and learn the peace, joy, happiness, serenity,\nthat come with practical trust in Him. With some people this change\nmay come instantly; with others, more slowly. Personally I have had\nto learn slowly, \"line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little,\nthere a little.\" And I would caution my readers not to expect too\nmuch all at once. But I am fully convinced that as faith, trust, and\nnaturalness grow, worry will cease, will slough off, like the dead\nskin of the serpent, and leave those once bound by it free from its\nmalign influence. Who cannot see and feel that such a consummation is\ndevoutly to be wished, worth working and earnestly striving for?\n\nIf I help a few I shall be more than repaid, if many, my heart will\nrejoice.\n\n[Signed: George Wharton James]\n\nPasadena, Calif. _February_, 1916.\n\n\n\n\nQUIT YOUR WORRYING!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE CURSE OF WORRY\n\n\nOf how many persons can it truthfully be said they never worry, they\nare perfectly happy, contented, serene? It would be interesting if\neach of my readers were to recall his acquaintances and friends, think\nover their condition in this regard, and then report to me the result.\nWhat a budget of worried persons I should have to catalogue, and alas,\nI am afraid, how few of the serene would there be named. When John\nBurroughs wrote his immortal poem, _Waiting_, he struck a deeper note\nthan he dreamed of, and the reason it made so tremendous an impression\nupon the English-speaking world was that it was a new note to them. It\nopened up a vision they had not before contemplated. Let me quote it\nhere in full:\n\n  Serene I fold my hands and wait,\n  Nor care for wind, or tide or sea;\n  I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,\n  For lo! my own shall come to me.\n\n  I stay my haste, I make delays,\n  For what avails this eager pace?\n  I stand amid the eternal ways,\n  And what is mine shall know my face.\n\n  Asleep, awake, by night or day,\n  The friends I seek are seeking me,\n  No wind can drive my bark astray,\n  Nor change the tide of destiny.\n\n  What matter if I stand alone?\n  I wait with joy the coming years;\n  My heart shall reap where it has sown,\n  And garner up its fruit of tears.\n\n  The waters know their own and draw\n  The brook that springs in yonder height,\n  So flows the good with equal law\n  Unto the soul of pure delight.\n\n  The stars come nightly to the sky;\n  The tidal wave unto the sea;\n  Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high\n  Can keep my own away from me.\n\nI have been wonderfully struck by the fact that in studying the\nUpanishads, and other sacred books of the East, there is practically\nno reference to the kind of worry that is the bane and curse of our\nOccidental world. In conversation with the learned men of the Orient\nI find this same delightful fact. Indeed they have no word in their\nlanguages to express our idea of fretful worry. Worry is a purely\nWestern product, the outgrowth of our materialism, our eager striving\nafter place and position, power and wealth, our determination to be\nhoused, clothed, and jeweled as well as our neighbors, and a little\nbetter if possible; in fact, it comes from our failure to know that\nlife is spiritual not material; that all these outward things are the\nmere \"passing show,\" the tinsel, the gawds, the tissue-paper, the blue\nand red lights of the theater, the painted scenery, the mock heroes\nand heroines of the stage, rather than the real settings of the real\nlife of real men and women. What does the inventor, who knows that his\ninvention will help his fellows, care about the newest dance, or the\nlatest style in ties, gloves or shoes; what does the woman whose heart\nand brain are completely engaged in relieving suffering care if she is\nnot familiar with the latest novel, or the latest fashions in flounced\npantalettes? Life is real, life is earnest, and this does not mean\nunduly solemn and somber, but that it deals with the real things\nrather than the paper-flower shows of the stage and the imaginary\nthings of so-called society.\n\nIt is the fashion of our active, aggressive, material, Occidental\ncivilization to sneer and scoff at the quiet, passive, and less\nmaterial civilization of the Orient. We despise--that is, the\nunthinking majority do--the studious, contemplative Oriental. We\nbelieve in being \"up and doing.\" But in this one particular of worry\nwe have much to learn from the Oriental. If happiness and a large\ncontent be a laudable aim of life how far are we--the occidental\nworld--succeeding in attaining it? Few there be who are content, and,\nas I have already suggested few there be who are free from worry. On\nthe other hand while active happiness may be somewhat scarce in\nIndia, a large content is not uncommon, and worry, as we Westerners\nunderstand it, is almost unknown. Hence we need to find the happy mean\nbetween the material activity of our own civilization, and the mental\npassivity of that of the Orientals. Therein will be found the calm\nserenity of an active mind, the reasonable acceptance of things as\nthey are because we know they are good, the restfulness that comes\nfrom the assurance that \"all things work together for _Good_ to them\nthat love God.\"\n\nThat worry is a curse no intelligent observer of life will deny. It\nhas hindered millions from progressing, and never benefited a soul. It\noccupies the mind with that which is injurious and thus keeps out\nthe things that might benefit and bless. It is an active and real\nmanifestation of the fable of the man who placed the frozen asp in his\nbosom. As he warmed it back to life the reptile turned and fatally bit\nhis benefactor. Worry is as a dangerous, injurious book, the reading\nof which not only takes up the time that might have been spent in\nreading a good, instructive, and helpful book, but, at the same time,\npoisons the mind of the reader, corrupts his soul with evil images,\nand sets his feet on the pathway to destruction.\n\nWhy is it that creatures endowed with reason distress themselves and\neveryone around them by worrying? It might seem reasonable for the\nwild creatures of the wood--animals without reason--to worry as to how\nthey should secure their food, and live safely with wilder animals\nand men seeking their blood and hunting them; but that men and women,\nendued with the power of thought, capable of seeing the why and\nwherefore of things, should worry, is one of the strange and peculiar\nevidences that our so-called civilization is not all that it ought to\nbe. The wild Indian of the desert, forest, or canyon seldom, if ever,\nworries. He is too great a natural philosopher to be engaged in so\nfoolish and unnecessary a business. He has a better practical system\nof life than has his white and civilized (!) brother who worries, for\nhe says: Change what can be changed; bear the unchangeable without\na murmur. With this philosophy he braves the wind and the rain, the\nsand, and the storm, the extremes of heat and cold, the plethora of a\ngood harvest or the famine of a drought. If he complains it is within\nhimself; and if he whines and whimpers no one ever hears him. His\nface may become a little more stern under the higher pressure; he may\ntighten his waist belt a hole or two to stifle the complaints of his\nempty stomach, but his voice loses no note of its cheeriness and his\nsmile none of its sweet serenity.\n\nWhy should the rude and brutal (!) savage be thus, while the cultured,\neducated, refined man and woman of civilization worry wrinkles into\ntheir faces, gray hairs upon their heads, querelousness into their\nvoices and bitterness into their hearts?\n\nWhen we use the word \"worry\" what do we mean? The word comes from the\nold Saxon, and was in imitation of the sound caused by the choking or\nstrangling of an animal when seized by the throat by another animal.\nWe still refer to the \"worrying\" of sheep by dogs--the seizing by the\nthroat with the teeth; killing or badly injuring by repeated biting,\nshaking, tearing, etc. From this original meaning the word has\nenlarged until now it means to tease, to trouble, to harass with\nimportunity or with care or anxiety. In other words it is _undue_\ncare, _needless_ anxiety, _unnecessary_ brooding, _fretting_ thought.\n\nWhat a wonderful picture the original source of the word suggests of\nthe latter-day meaning. Worry takes our manhood, womanhood, our high\nambitions, our laudable endeavors, our daily lives, _by the throat_,\nand strangles, chokes, bites, tears, shakes them, hanging on like a\nwolf, a weasel, or a bull-dog, sucking out our life-blood, draining\nour energies, our hopes, our aims, our noble desires, and leaving us\ntorn, empty, shaken, useless, bloodless, hopeless, and despairing. It\nis the nightmare of life that rides us to discomfort, wretchedness,\ndespair, and to that death-in-life that is no life at all. It is the\nvampire that sucks out the good of us and leaves us like the rind of\na squeezed-out orange; it is the cooking-process that extracts and\nwastes all the nutritious juices of the meat and leaves nothing but\nthe useless and tasteless fibre.\n\nWorry is a worse thief than the burglar or highwayman. It goes beyond\nthe train-wrecker or the vile wretch who used to lure sailing vessels\nupon a treacherous shore, in its relentless heartlessness. Once it\nbegins to control it never releases its hold unless its victim wakes\nup to the sure ruin that awaits him and frees himself from its bondage\nby making a great, continuous, and successful fight.\n\nIt steals the joy of married life, of fatherhood and motherhood; it\ndestroys social life, club life, business life, and religious life.\nIt robs a man of friendships and makes his days long, gloomy periods,\ninstead of rapidly-passing epochs of joy and happiness. It throws\naround its victim a chilling atmosphere as does the iceberg, or\nthe snow bank; it exhales the mists and fogs of wretchedness and\nmisunderstanding; it chills family happiness, checks friendly\nintercourse, and renders the business occupations of life curses\ninstead of blessings.\n\nWorry manifests itself in a variety of ways. It is protean in its\nversatility. It can be physical or mental. The hypochondriac conceives\nthat everything is going to the \"demnition bow-wows.\" Nothing can\nreassure him. He sees in every article of diet a hidden fiend of\ndyspepsia; in every drink a demon of torture. Every man he meets is a\nscoundrel, and every woman a leech. Children are growing worse\ndaily, and society is \"rotten.\" The Church is organized for the mere\nfattening of a raft of preachers and parsons who preach what they\ndon't believe and never try to practice. Lawyers and judges are all\ndishonest swindlers caring nothing for honor and justice and seeking\nonly their fees; physicians and surgeons are pitiless wretches who\nscare their patients in order to extort money from them; men in office\nare waiting, lurking, hunting for chances to graft, eager to steal\nfrom their constituents at every opportunity. He expects every thing,\nevery animal, every man, every woman to get the best of him--and, as a\nrule, he is not disappointed. For we can nearly always be accommodated\nin life and get that for which we look.\n\nWe are told that all these imaginary ills come from physical causes.\nThe hypochondrium is supposed to be affected, and as it is located\nunder the \"short ribs,\" the hypochondriac continuously suffers from\nthat awful \"sinking at the pit of the stomach\" that makes him feel\nas if the bottom had dropped out of life itself. He can neither eat,\ndigest his food, walk, sit, rest, work, take pleasure, exercise, or\nsleep. His body is the victim of innumerable ills. His tongue, his\nlips, his mouth are dry and parched, his throat full of slime and\nphlegm, his stomach painful, his bowels full of gas, and he regards\nhimself as cursed of God--a walking receptacle of woe. To physician,\nwife, husband, children, employer, employee, pastor, and friend alike\nthe hypochondriac is a pest, a nuisance, a chill and almost a curse,\nand, poor creature, these facts do not take away or lessen our\nsympathy for him, for, though most of his ills are imaginary, he\nsuffers more than do those who come in contact with him.\n\nThen there is the neurasthenic--the mentally collapsed whose collapse\ninvariably comes from too great tension or worry. I know several\nhousewives who became neurasthenic by too great anxiety to keep their\nhouses spotless. Not a speck of dust must be anywhere. The slightest\nappearance of inattention or carelessness in this matter was a great\nsource of worry, and they worried lest the maid fail to do her duty.\n\nI know another housewife who is so dainty and refined that, though her\nhusband's income is strained almost to the breaking point, she must\nhave everything in the house so dainty and fragile that no ordinary\nservant can be trusted to care for the furniture, wash the dishes,\npolish the floors, etc., and the result is she is almost a confirmed\nneurasthenic because, in the first place, she worries over her\ndainty things, and, secondly, exhausts herself in caring for these\nunnecessarily fragile household equipments.\n\nEvery neurasthenic is a confirmed worrier. He ever sits on the \"stool\nof repentance,\" clothing himself in sackcloth and ashes for what he\nhas done or not done. He cries aloud--by his acts--every five minutes\nor so: \"We have done those things which we ought not to have done and\nhave left undone those things which we ought to have done, and there\nis no health in us.\" Everything past is regretted, everything present\nis in doubt, and nothing but anxieties and uncertainties meet\nthe future. If he holds a position of responsibility he asks his\nsubordinates or associates to perform certain services and then\n\"worries himself to death,\" watching to see that they \"do it right,\"\nor afraid lest they forget to do it at all. He wakes up from a sound\nsleep in dread lest he forgot to lock the door, turn out the electric\nlight in the hall, or put out the gas. He becomes the victim of\nuncertainty and indecision. He fears lest he decide wrongly, he\nworries that he hasn't yet decided, and yet having thoroughly argued a\nmatter out and come to a reasonable conclusion, allows his worries to\nunsettle him and is forever questioning his decision and going back to\nrevise and rerevise it. Whatever he does or doesn't do he regrets and\nwishes he had done the converse.\n\nHusbands are worried about their wives; wives about their husbands;\nparents about their children; children about their parents. Farmers\nare worried over their crops; speculators over their gamblings;\ninvestors over their investments. Teachers are worried over their\npupils, and pupils over their lessons, their grades, and their\npromotions. Statesmen (!) are worried over their constituents, and the\nlatter are generally worried by their representatives. People who have\nschemes to further--legitimate or otherwise--are worried when they\nare retarded, and competitors are worried if they are not. Pastors are\nworried over their congregations,--occasionally about their salaries,\nvery often about their large families, and now and again about their\nfitness for their holy office,--and there are few congregations that,\nat one time or another, are not worried _by_, as well as _about_,\ntheir pastors. The miner is worried when he sees his ledge \"petering\nout,\" or finds the ore failing to assay its usual value. The editor\nis worried lest his reporters fail to bring in the news, and often\nworried when it is brought in to know whether it is accurate or\nnot. The chemist worries over his experiments, and the inventor that\ncertain things needful will persist in eluding him. The man who has\nto rent a house, worries when rent day approaches; and many who own\nhouses worry at the same time. Some owners, indeed, worry because\nthere is no rent day, they have no tenants, their houses are idle.\nOthers worry because their tenants are not to their liking, are\ndestructive, careless, or neglect the flowers and the lawn, or allow\nthe children to batter the furniture, walk in hob nails over the\nhardwood floors, or scratch the paint off the walls. Men in high\nposition worry lest their superiors are not as fully appreciative\nof their efforts as they should be, and they in turn worry their\nsubordinates lest they forget that they are subordinate.\n\nMistresses worry about their maids, and maids about their mistresses.\nSome of the former worry because they have to go into their\nkitchens, others because they are not allowed to go. Some mistresses\ndeliberately worry their servants, and others are worried because\ntheir servants insist upon doing the worrying. Many a wife is worried\nbecause of her husband's typewriter, and many a typewriter is worried\nbecause her employer has a wife. Some typewriters are worried because\nthey are not made into wives, and many a one who is a wife wishes she\nwere free again to become a typewriter.\n\nThousands of girls--many of them who ought yet to be wearing\nshort dresses and playing with dolls--worry because they have no\nsweethearts, and equal thousands worry because they _do_ have them.\nMany a lad worries because he has no \"lassie,\" and many a one worries\nbecause he has. Yesterday I rode on a street car and saw a bit of\nby-play that fully illustrated this. On these particular cars there\nis a seat for two alongside the front by the motorman. On this car,\nchatting merrily with the handler of the lever, sat a black-eyed,\npretty-faced Latin type of brunette. That _he_ was happy was evidenced\nby his good-natured laugh and the huge smile that covered his face\nfrom ear to ear as he responded to her sallies. Just then a young\nItalian came on the car, directly to the front, and seemed nettled to\nsee the young lady talking so freely with the motorman. He saluted her\nwith a frown upon his face, but evidently with familiarity. The change\nin the girl's demeanor was instantaneous. Evidently she did not wish\nto offend the newcomer, nor did she wish to break with the motorman.\nAll were ill at ease, distraught, vexed, worried. She tried to bring\nthe newcomer into the conversation, which he refused. The motorman\neyed him with hostility now and again, as he dared to neglect his\nduty, but smiled uneasily in the face of the girl when she addressed\nhim with an attempt at freedom.\n\nBye and bye the youth took the empty seat by the side of the girl,\nand endeavored to draw her into conversation to the exclusion of the\nmotorman. She responded, twisting her body and face towards him,\nso that her sweet and ingratiating smiles could not be seen by the\nmotorman. Then, she reversed the process and gave a few fleeting\nsmiles to the grim-looking motorman. It was as clear a case of\n\n  How happy could I be with either,\n  Were t'other dear charmer away,\n\nas one could well see.\n\nJust then the car came to a transfer point. The girl had a transfer\nand left, smiling sweetly, but separately, in turn, to the motorman\nand her young Italian friend. The latter watched her go. Then a new\nlook came over his face, which I wondered at. It was soon explained.\nThe transfer point was also a division point for this car. The\nmotorman and conductor were changed, and the moment the new crew came,\nour motorman jumped from his own car, ran to the one the brunette had\ntaken, and swung himself on, as it crossed at right angles over\nthe track we were to take. Rising to his feet the youth watched the\npassing car, with keenest interest until it was out of sight, clearly\nrevealing the jealousy, worry, and unrest he felt.\n\nIn another chapter I have dealt more fully with the subject of\nthe worries of jealousy. They are demons of unrest and distress,\ndestroying the very vitals with their incessant gnawing.\n\nToo great emphasis cannot be placed upon the physical ills that come\nfrom worry. The body unconsciously reflects our mental states. A\nfretful and worrying mother should never be allowed to suckle her\nchild, for she directly injures it by the poison secreted in her milk\nby the disturbances caused in her body by the worry of her mind.\nAmong the many wonderfully good things said in his lifetime Henry Ward\nBeecher never said a wiser and truer thing than that \"it is not the\nrevolution which destroys the machinery, but the friction.\" Worry is\nthe friction that shatters the machine. Work, to the healthy body and\nserene mind, is a joy, a blessing, a health-giving exercise, but to\nthe worried is a burden, a curse and a destroyer.\n\nGo where you will, when you will, how you will, and you will find most\npeople worrying to a greater or lesser extent. Indeed so full has our\nWestern world become of worry that a harsh and complaining note is far\nmore prevalent than we are willing to believe, which is expressed in\na rude motto to be found hung on many an office, bedroom, library,\nstudy, and laboratory wall which reads:\n\n  _Life is one Damn\n  Thing after Another_\n\n[Note: this is outlined in a block.]\n\nThose gifted with a sense of humor laugh at the motto; the very\nserious frown at it and reprobate its apparent profanity, those who\nsee no humor in anything regard it with gloom, the careless with\nassumed indifference, but in the minds of all, more or less latent or\nsubconscious, there is a recognition that there is \"an awful lot of\ntruth in it.\"\n\nHence it will be seen that worry is by no means confined to the poor.\nThe well-to-do, the prosperous, and the rich, indeed, have far more to\nworry about than the poor, and for one victim who suffers keenly from\nworry among the poor, ten can be found among the rich who are its\nabject victims.\n\nIt is worry that paints the lines of care on foreheads and cheeks that\nshould be smooth and beautiful; worry bows the shoulders, brings out\nscowls and frowns where smiles and sweet greetings should exist. Worry\nis the twister, the dwarfer, the poisoner, the murderer of joy, of\npeace, of work, of happiness; the strangler, the burglar of life; the\nphantom, the vampire, the ghost that scares, terrifies, fills with\ndread. Yet he is a liar and a scoundrel, a villain and a coward, who\nwill turn and flee if fearlessly and courageously met and defied.\nInstead of pampering and petting him, humoring and conciliating him,\nmeet him on his own ground. Defy him to do his worst. Flaunt him,\nlaugh at his threats, sneer and scoff at his pretensions, bid him do\nhis worst. Better be dead than under the dominion of such a tyrant.\nAnd, my word for it, as soon as you take that attitude, he will flee\nfrom you, nay, he will disappear as the mists fade away in the heat of\nthe noonday sum.\n\nWorry, however, is not only an effect. It is also a cause. Worry\ncauses worry. It breeds more rapidly than do flies. The more one\nworries the more he learns to worry. Begin to worry over one thing\nand soon you are worrying about twenty. And the infernal curse is not\ncontent with breeding worries of its own kind. It is as if it were a\nparent gifted with the power of breeding a score, a hundred different\nkinds of progeny at one birth, each more hideous, repulsive, and\nfearful than the other. There is no palliation, temporization, or\nparleying possible with such a monster. Death is the only way to be\nreleased from him, and it is your death or his. His death is a duty\nGod requires at your hands. Why, then, waste time? Start now and kill\nthe foul fiend as quickly as you can.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nOURS IS THE AGE OF WORRY\n\n\nHow insulting! What a ridiculous statement! How ignorant of our\nachievements! I can well imagine some of my readers saying when they\nsee this chapter heading. _This_, an age of worry! Why this is the age\nof progress, of advancement, of uplift, of the onward march of a great\nand wonderful civilization.\n\nIs it?\n\nCertainly it is! See what we have done in electricity, look at the\ntelephone, telegraph, wireless and now the wireless telephone. See\nour advancement in mechanics,--the automobile, the new locomotives,\nvessels, etc. See our conquest of the air--dirigibles, aeroplanes,\nhydroplanes and the like.\n\nYes! I see, and what of it? _We_ have done, _our_ advancement,\n_our_ conquest, etc., etc. Yes! I see _we_ have not lessened _our_\narrogance, _our_ empty-headed pride, _our_ boasting. _We_--Why \"_we_\"?\n\nWhat have you and I had to do with the new inventions in electricity\nor mechanics or the conquest of the air?\n\nNot one single, solitary thing! The progress of the world has\nbeen made through the efforts of a few solitary, exceptional, rare\nindividuals, not by the combined efforts of us all. You and I are\nas common, unprogressive, uninventive, indifferent mediocrities as\nwe--the common people--always were. We have not contributed one iota\nto all this progress, and I often question whether mud; of it comes\nto us more fraught with good than evil. We claim the results without\nengaging in the work. We use the 'phone and worry because Central\ndoesn't get us our connections immediately, when we haven't the\nfaintest conception of how the connection is gained, or why we are\ndelayed. We ride on the fast train, but chafe and worry ourselves and\neverybody about us to a frazzle because we are stopped on a siding by\na semaphore of a block station which we never have observed, and would\nnot understand if we did. We reap but have not sowed, gather but have\nnot strewed, and that is ever injurious and never beneficial. Our\nconceit is flattered and enlarged, our importance magnified, our\n\"dignity\"--God save the mark!--made more impressive, and as a result,\nwe are more the target for the inconsequential worries of life. We\nworry if we are not flattered, if our importance is not recognized\neven by strangers, and our dignity not honored--in other words we\nworry that we are not _kow-towed_ to, deferred to, respectfully\ngreeted on every hand and made to feel that civilization, progress\nand advancement are materially furthered and enhanced by our mere\nexistence.\n\nEvery individual with such an outlook on life is a prolific\ndistributer of worry germs; he, she, is a pest and a nuisance,\nmore disturbing to the real peace of the community than a victim\nof smallpox, and one who should be isolated in a pest-house. But,\nunfortunately, our myopic vision sees only the wealth, the luxury, the\nspending capacity of such an individual, and that ends it--we bow down\nand worship before the golden calf.\n\nIf I had the time in these pages to discuss the history of worry, I am\nassured I could show clearly to the student of history that worry is\nalways the product of prosperity; that while a nation is hard at work\nat its making, and every citizen is engaged in arduous labor of one\nkind or another for the upbuilding of his own or the national power,\nworry is scarcely known. The builders of our American civilization\nwere too busy conquering the wilderness of New England, the prairies\nof the Middle West, the savannahs and lush growths of the South, the\narid deserts of the West to have much time for worry. Such men and\nwomen were gifted with energy, the power of initiative and executive\nability, they were forceful, daring, courageous and active, and _in\ntheir very working_ had neither time nor thought for worry.\n\nBut just as soon as a reasonable amount of success attended their\nefforts, and they had amassed wealth their children began and\ncontinued to worry. Not occupied with work that demands our unceasing\nenergy, we find ourselves occupied with trifles, worrying over our\nhealth, our investments, our luxuries, our lap-dogs and our frivolous\noccupations. Imagine the old-time pioneers of the forest, plain,\nprairie and desert worrying about sitting in a draught, or taking cold\nif they got wet, or wondering whether they could eat what would be set\nbefore them at the next meal. They were out in the open, compelled to\ntake whatever weather came to them, rain or shine, hot or cold, sleet\nor snow, and ready when the sunset hour came, to eat with relish and\nappetite sauce, the rude and plain victuals placed upon the table.\n\nCompare the lives of that class of men with the later generation of\n\"capitalists.\" I know one who used to live at Sherry's in New York.\nHis apartments were as luxurious as those of a monarch; he was\nnot happy, however, for worry rode him from morning to night. He\nabsolutely spent an hour or more each day consulting the menu, or\ndiscussing with the steward what he could have to place upon his menu,\nand died long before his time, cursed with his wealth, its resultant\nidleness and the trifling worries that always come to such men. Had he\nbeen reduced to poverty, compelled to go out and work on a farm, eat\noatmeal mush or starve for breakfast, bacon and greens for dinner,\nand cold pork and potatoes or starve for supper, he would be alive and\nhappy to-day.\n\nTake the fussy, nervous, irritable, worrying men and women of life,\nwho poke their noses into other people's affairs, retail all the\nscandal, and hand on all the slander and gossip of empty and,\ntherefore, evil minds. They are invariably well to do and without any\nwork or responsibilities. They go gadding about restless and feverish\nbecause of the empty vacuity of their lives, a prey to worry because\nthey have nothing else to do. If I were to put down and faithfully\nreport the conversations I have with such people; the fool worries\nthey are really distressed with; the labor, time and energy they spend\non following chimeras, will o' the wisps, mirages that beckon to them\nand promise a little mental occupation,--and over which they cannot\nhelp but worry, one could scarcely believe it.\n\nAs Dr. Walton forcefully says in his admirable booklet:\n\n    The present, then, is the age, and our contemporaries are the\n    people, that bring into prominence the little worries, that\n    cause the tempest in the teapot, that bring about the worship\n    of the intangible, and the magnification of the unessential.\n    If we had lived in another epoch we might have dreamt of the\n    eternal happiness of saving our neck, but in this one we fret\n    because our collar does not fit it, and because the button\n    that holds the collar has rolled under the bureau.[A]\n\n[Footnote A: _Calm Yourself_. By George Lincoln Walton, M.D.,\nHoughton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, Mass.]\n\nI am not so foolish as to imagine for one moment that I can correct\nthe worrying tendency of the age, but I do want to be free from worry\nmyself, to show others that it is unnecessary and needless, and also,\nthat it is possible to live a life free from its demoralizing and\naltogether injurious influences.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nNERVOUS PROSTRATION AND WORRY.\n\n\nNervous prostration is generally understood to mean weakness of the\nnerves. It invariably comes to those who have extra strong nerves,\nbut who do not know how to use them properly, as well as those whose\nnervous system is naturally weak and easily disorganized. Nervous\nprostration is a disease of overwork, mainly mental overwork, and in\nninety-nine cases out of a hundred, comes from worry. Worry is\nthe most senseless and insane form of mental work. It is as if a\nbicycle-rider were so riding against time that, the moment after he\ngot off his machine to sit down to a meal he sprang up again, and\nwhile eating were to work his arms and legs as if he were riding.\nIt is the slave-driver that stands over the slave and compels him to\ncontinue his work, even though he is so exhausted that hands, arms and\nlegs cease to obey, and he falls asleep at his task.\n\nThe folly, as well as the pain and distress of this cruel\nslave-driving is that we hold the whip over ourselves, have trained\nourselves to do it, and have done it so long that now we seem unable\nto stop. In another chapter there is fully described (in Dorothy\nCanfield's vivid words) the squirrel-cage whirligig of modern society\nlife. Modern business life is not much better. Men compel themselves\nto the endless task of amassing money without knowing _why_ they amass\nit. They make money, that they may enlarge their factories, to make\nmore ploughs, to get more money, to enlarge their factories, to make\nmore ploughs, to get more money, to enlarge more factories, to make\nmore ploughs, and so on, _ad infinitum_. Where is the sense of it.\nSuch conduct has well been termed money-madness. It is an obsession, a\ndisease, a form of hypnotism, a mental malady.\n\nThe tendency of the age is to drive. We drive our own children to\nschool; there they are driven for hours by one study after another;\neven when they come home they bring lessons with them--the lovers of\nstudy and over-conscientious because they want to do them, and the\nlaggards because they must, if they are to keep up with their classes.\nIf the parents of such children are not careful, they (the children)\nsoon learn to worry; they are behind-hand with their lessons; they\ndidn't get the highest mark yesterday; the class is going ahead of\nthem, etc., etc., until mental collapse comes.\n\nFor worrying is the worst kind of mental overwork. As Dr. Edward\nLivingston Hunt, of Columbia University, New York, said in a paper\nread by him early in 1912, before the Public Health Education\nCommittee of the Medical Society of the County of New York:\n\n    There is a form of overwork, exceedingly common and\n    exceedingly disastrous--one which equally accompanies great\n    intellectual labors and minor tasks. I allude to worry. When\n    we medical men speak of the workings of the brain we make\n    use of a term both expressive and characteristic. It is to\n    cerebrate. To cerebrate means to think, to reason, and to\n    reach conclusions; it means to concentrate and to work hard.\n    To think, then, is to cerebrate. To worry is to cerebrate\n    intensely.\n\n    Worry is overwork of the most disastrous kind; it means to\n    drive the mental machinery at an unreasonable and dangerous\n    rate. Worry gives the brain no rest, but rather keeps the\n    delicate cells in constant and continuous action. Work is\n    wear; worry is tear. Overwork, mental strain, and worry lead\n    to a diminution of nerve force and to a prostration of the\n    vital forces and causes a degeneracy of the blood vessels of\n    the brain.\n\n    Exhaustion, another name for fatigue, may show itself either\n    in the form of physical collapse, so that the patient lacks\n    resistance, and, becoming anemic and run down, falls a prey\n    to any and every little ailment, or in the form of mental\n    collapse. An exhausted brain then gives way to depression, to\n    fears, and to anxiety.\n\n    The vast majority of nervous breakdowns are avoidable; they\n    are the result of our own excesses and of the disregard we\n    show toward the ordinary laws of health and hygiene; they are\n    the results of the tremendous demands which are made upon us\n    by modern life; they are the result of the strenuous life.\n\nFrom this analysis, made by an expert, it is evident that worry and\nnervous prostration are but two points on the same circle. Nervous\nprostration causes worry, and worry causes nervous prostration. Those\nwho overwork their bodies and minds--who drive themselves either with\nthe cares of business, the amassing of wealth, yielding to the demands\nof society, the cravings of ambition, or the pursuit of pleasure, are\nalike certain to suffer the results of mental overwork.\n\nAnd here let me interject what to me has become a fundamental\nprinciple upon which invariably I rely. It will be recalled what I\nhave said elsewhere of _selfish_ and _unselfish_ occupations. It is\nthe selfish occupations that produce nerve-exhaustion. Those that\nare unselfish seldom result in the disturbance of the harmony or\nequilibrium of our nature--whether we regard it as physical, mental,\nor spiritual. This may seem to be a trancendental statement--perhaps\nit is. But I am confidently assured of its essential truth. That man\nor woman who is truly engaged in an unselfish work--a work that is for\nthe good of others--has a right to look for, to expect and to receive\nfrom the great All Source of strength, power and serenity all that\nis needed to keep the body, mind and soul in harmony, consequently in\nperfect health and free from worry.\n\nHence the apparent paradox that, if you would care for yourself you\nmust disregard yourself in your loving care for others.\n\nOne great reason why worry produces nervous prostration is that it\ninduces insomnia.\n\nWorry and sleeplessness are twin sisters. As one has well said:\n\"Refreshing sleep and vexing thoughts are deadly foes.\" Health and\nhappiness often disappear from those who fail to sleep, for sleep,\nindeed, is \"tired Nature's sweet restorer,\" as Young in his _Night\nThoughts_ termed it. Shakspere never wrote anything truer when he\nsaid:\n\n  Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,\n  The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,\n  Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,\n  Chief nourisher of life's feast.\n\nOr, where he spoke of it as\n\n  Sleep that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,\n  Steals me awhile from mine own company.\n\nEven the Bible makes sleep one of the special blessings of God, for we\nare told that \"He giveth His beloved sleep.\" The sacred book contains\nmany references to sleeplessness and its causes.\n\nUndoubtedly most potent among these causes is worry. The worrier\nretires to his bed at the usual hour, but his brain is busy--it is\nworking overtime. What is it doing? Is it thinking over things\nthat are to be done, and planning for the future? If so, there is a\nlegitimate excuse, for as soon as the plan is laid, rest will come,\nand he will sleep. Is he thinking over the mistakes of the past and\nsensibly and wisely taking counsel from them? If so, he will speedily\ncome to a decision, and then sleep will bring grateful oblivion. Is\nhe thinking joyful thoughts? These will bring a natural feeling of\nharmony with all things, and that is conducive to speedy sleep? Is\nhe thinking of how he may help others? That is equally soothing to\nnerves, brain and body, and brings the refreshment of forgetfulness.\n\nBut no! the worrier has another method. He thinks the same thoughts\nover and over again, without the slightest attempt to get anywhere. He\nhas thrashed them out before, so often that he can tell exactly what\neach thought will lead to. His ideas go around in a circle like\nthe horse tied to the wheel. He is on a treadmill ever ascending,\ntramping, up, up, up and up, and still up, but the wheel falls\ndown each time as far as he steps up, and after hours and hours of\nunceasing, wracking, distressful mental labor, he has done absolutely\nnothing, has not progressed one inch, is still in the clutch of the\nsame vicious treadmill. Brain weary, nerve weary, is there any wonder\nthat he rolls and tosses, throws over his pillow, kicks off the\nclothes, groans, almost cries aloud in his agony of longing for rest.\nPoor victim of worry and sleeplessness, how I long to help you get\nrid of your evil habit and save others from falling into it. For both\nworry and sleeplessness are habits, easily gained, and once gained\nvery hard to get rid of, yet both unnecessary, needless, and foolish.\nThe worry that produces sleeplessness is merciless; so merciless and\nrelentless that no fierce torture of a Black-hander can be described\nthat is worse in its long continuing and evil results. Lives are\nwrecked, brains shattered, happiness destroyed by this monstrous evil,\nand many a man and woman fastens it upon himself, herself,\nthrough indulging in anxious thought, or by yielding to that equal\ndevil-dragon of self-pity.\n\nDavid the psalmist graphically tells of his own case:\n\n  I am weary with my groaning;\n  Every night make I my bed to swim;\n  I water my couch with my tears,\n  Mine eye wasteth away because of grief. _Ps. VI_. 6:7.\n\nAt another time he cries\n\n  My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\n  Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words\n    of my groaning?\n  Oh my God, I cry in the day time, but thou answereth not;\n  And in the night season, I am not silent. _Ps. XXII_. 1:2.\n\nYet God heard him not until his groaning and self-pity were cast\naside, until he rested in God, trusted in Him. Then came rest, as he\ngraphically expresses it:\n\n  I laid me down and slept;\n  I awaked; for Jehovah sustaineth me. _Ps. III. 5_.\n\n  In peace will I both lay me down and sleep:\n  For thou, Jehovah, alone maketh me dwell in safety. _Ps. IV. 8._\n\n  I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel;\n  Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons. _Ps. XVI. 7._\n\nSee the result of this confidence in God.\n\n  I have set Jehovah always before me:\n  Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.\n  Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth:\n  My flesh also shall dwell in safety. _Ps. XVI. 8:9._\n\nAnd where the heart is glad, and one rejoiceth in the sense of peace\nand safety, sweet sleep lays its soothing hand upon the work-worn\nbrain and body, tired with the labors of the day, and brings rest,\nrepose, recuperation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nHOLY WRIT, THE SAGES, AND WORRY\n\n\nOur civilization is called a _Christian_ civilization. We are the\n_Christian_ nations. Yet, as I have shown in Chapters I and II,\nours is the worrying civilization. That worry is dishonoring to our\ncivilization, and especially to our professions as Christians is\nself-evident. Let us then look briefly in the book we call our Holy\nBible, our Guide of Life, our Director to Salvation, and see what the\nsacred writers have to say upon this subject. If they commend it, we\nmay assume that it will be safe to worry. If they rebuke or reprobate\nit we may be equally assured that we have no right to indulge in it.\n\nSt. Paul seemed to have a very clear idea of worry when he said:\n\n    Be careful--[full of care]--for nothing, but in everything by\n    prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests\n    known unto God. _Philippians_ 4:6.\n\nHow inclusive this is--full of care, anxiety, fretfulness, worry about\n_nothing_, but in _everything_ presenting your case to God. And then\ncomes the promise:\n\n    And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall\n    keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. _Phil_. IV. 7.\n\nHow clear, definite, full and satisfactory. What room for worry\nis there in a heart full of the peace of God, which passeth all\nunderstanding? And oh, how much to be desired is such an experience.\n\nBrowning, in his _Abt Vogler_, sings practically the same sweet song\nwhere he says:\n\n  Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,\n  Each sufferer says his says, his scheme of the weal and woe:\n  But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;\n  The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.\n\nIf God whispers in the ear of the sufferer, the doubter, the\ndistressed, the worried, the peace must come; and if peace come, it\nmatters not what others' reasoning may bring to them, the knowledge\nthat God has whispered is enough; it brings satisfaction, content,\nserenity, peace. The opposite of worry is rest, faith, trust, peace.\nHow full the Bible is of promises of rest to those who know and love\nGod and his ways of right-doing. Mendlessohn took the incitement of\nthe psalmist (Psalm 37:7), \"Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for\nhim,\" and made of it one of the tenderest, sweetest songs of all time.\nFull of yearning over the worried, the distressed, the music itself\nseems to brood in sympathetic and soothing power, as a mother croons\nto her fretful child: \"Why fret, why worry,--No, no! rest, rest my\nlittle one, in the love of the all-Father,\" and many a weary, fretful,\nworried heart has found rest and peace while listening to this sweet\nand beautiful song.\n\nThere is still another passage in holy writ that the perpetual worrier\nshould read and ponder. It is the prophet Isaiah's assurance that God\nsays to His children: \"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I\ncomfort you.\"\n\nWho has not seen a fretful, sick child taken up by a loving mother,\nyield to her soothing influence in a few minutes and drop off into\nrestful, healthful, restoring sleep. What a wonderful and forceful\nfigure of speech, illustrative of a never-ceasing fact that the Spirit\nof all good, the supreme Force of Love and Power in the universe is\nlooking, watching, without slumber or sleep, untiring, unfailing, ever\nready to give soothing comfort as does the mother, to those who fret\nand worry.\n\nThen, when cause for worry seems to be ever present, why not call upon\nthis Loving Maternal Soothing Power? Why not rest in His arms, and\nthus find peace, poise and serenity?\n\nHow much worry comes from fear as to the future. Men become hoarders,\nsavers, misers, or work themselves beyond healthful endurance, or shut\nout the daily joys of existence in their business absorption, because\nthey dread poverty in their old age. \"Wise provision\" becomes a\ndriving monster, worrying them into a restless, fretful energy that\nmust be accumulating all the time.\n\nTwo thousand years ago this trait of human nature was so strongly\nmanifested that Christ felt called upon to restrain and rebuke it.\nWhat a wonderful sermon He preached. It is worth while repeating it\nhere, and wise would that man, that woman be, who is worried about\nto-morrow, were he, she, to read it daily. I give it in the revised\nversion:\n\n    I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall\n    eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye\n    shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body\n    than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they\n    sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your\n    Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value\n    than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit\n    unto his stature? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment?\n    Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil\n    not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even\n    Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.\n    But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day\n    is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much\n    more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore\n    anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink?\n    or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these\n    things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth\n    that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his\n    kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be\n    added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for\n    the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day\n    is the evil thereof. _Matthew_, 6:25-34.\n\nHere is the wisest philosophy. Anxiety is suicide, peace is life;\nworry destroys, serenity upbuilds. As you want to live, to grow,\npossess your souls in peace and serenity. Work, aye, work mightily,\npowerfully, daily, but work for the joy of it, not because worry\ndrives you to it. Work persistently, consistently and worthily,\nbecause no man can live--or ought to live--without it, but do not let\nwork be your slave driver, your relentless master, urging you on to\ndrudgery, bondage to your counter, ledger or factory, until you drop\nexhausted and lifeless. Work for the real joy of it, and then, filled\nwith the blessed trust in God the all-Father expressed as above by\nChrist, throw your cares to the winds, bid your worries depart, and\naccept what comes with serenity, peace and thankfulness.\n\nMany proverbs have been written about worry, which it may be well\nto recall. Certainly it can do no harm to those who worry to see how\ntheir mental habit has been regarded, and is still regarded, by the\nconcentrated wisdom of the ages.\n\nAn old proverb says: \"It is not work, but worry, that kills.\" How true\nthis is. Congenial work is a health-bringer, a necessity for a normal\nlife, a joy; it keeps the body in order, promotes digestion, induces\nthe sleep of perfect restoration and is one of man's greatest\nblessings. But worry brings dis-ease (want of ease), discomfort,\nwretchedness, promotes evil secretions which upset the normal workings\nof the body, and is a constant banisher and disturber of sleep.\n\nStill another proverb says: \"Worry killed the cat.\" Many people read\nthis and fail to see its profound significance. It must be remembered\nthat in \"the good old days,\" when this proverb was most rife, the\nsuperstitious held that a cat had _nine lives_. Now, surely, the deep\nmeaning of the proverb is made apparent. Though the cat were possessed\nof nine lives, worry would surely kill them all--either one by one,\nby its horrid and determined persistence; or all at once, by the\nconcentrated virulence of its power.\n\nThere are many proverbs to the effect that \"When worry comes in,\nwit flies out,\" and these are all true. Worry unsettles the mind,\nunbalances the judgment, induces fever of the intellect, which\nrenders calm, cool weighing of matters impossible. No man of great\nachievements ever worried during his period of greatness. Had he done\nso his greatness could never have been achieved. Imagine a general\ntrying to solve the vexing problems of a great combat which is going\nagainst him, with his mind beset by numberless worries. He must\nconcentrate _all his energies_ upon the one thing. If worry occupies\nhis attention, wit, sense, judgment, discretion, wisdom are crowded\nout, have no place.\n\nAll the pictures given to us of Grant show him the most imperturbable\nat the most trying times. When the fortunes of war seemed most against\nhim he was the most cheerful, the least disturbed. He had learned the\ndanger of worry, and compelled it to flee from him, that calm judgment\nand clear-headed decisions might be his.\n\nIf, therefore, these great ones of earth found it essential to their\nwell-being to banish worry, how much more is it necessary that we of\nthe ordinary mass of mankind, of the commoner herd, apply ourselves to\nthe gaining of the same kind of wisdom.\n\nAn old countrywoman once said in my hearing: \"Worry, and you hug a\nhornet's nest.\" How suggestive both of the stinging that was sure to\ncome and the folly, the absurdity, the cruelty to oneself of the act.\n\nThe great Scotch philosopher, Blair, said: \"Worry (or anxiety) is the\npoison of human life,\" and how true it is. How biting, how corroding,\nhow destructive to life some poisons are, working speedily, suddenly,\nawfully. Others there are that have a cumulative effect, until life\nitself cannot bear the strain, and it goes out. Recently I was at a\nhome where a son was so worried over conditions that he felt ought not\nto exist between his parents, that he totally collapsed, mentally,\nand for a time was in danger of losing his reason. The folly of his\nattitude is apparent to everyone but himself, though he now seeks in\nthe absorbing occupation of teaching, to free himself from the poison\nof worry that was speedily destroying his reason.\n\nHenry Labouchere, the sage who for so many years has edited the London\n_Truth_, once wrote a couplet, that is as true as anything he ever\nwrote:\n\n  They who live in a worry,\n  Invite death in a hurry.\n\nI want to be ready for death when it comes, but as yet I am not\nextending an invitation to the gentleman with the scythe. Are you, my\nworrying reader, anxious to be mowed down before your time? Quit your\nworrying, and don't urge the Master Reaper to harvest you in until He\nis sure you are ready.\n\nAnother sage once said: \"To worry about to-morrow is to be unhappy\nto-day,\" and the same thought is put into: \"Never howl till you are\nhit,\" and the popular proverb attributed erroneously to Lincoln for it\nwas long in use before Lincoln's time: \"Do not cross the stream until\nyou get to it.\" Christ put the same thought into his Sermon on the\nMount, when He said: \"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.\"\nHow utterly foolish and wrong it is to spoil to-day by fretting and\nworrying over the possible evils of to-morrow. Many a man in business\nhas ruined himself by allowing worries about to-morrow to prevent him\nfrom doing the needful work of to-day. The rancher who sits down and\nworries because he fears it will not rain to-morrow, or it will rain,\nfails to do the work of to-day ready for whatever the morrow may bring\nforth. The wise Roman, Seneca, expressed the same thing in other words\nwhen he wrote: \"He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before\nit is necessary,\" and our own Lowell had a similar thought in mind\nwhich he expressed as follows: \"The misfortunes hardest to bear are\nthose which never come.\" Even the Chinese saw the folly of worrying\nover events that have not yet transpired, for they have a saying: \"To\nwhat purpose should a person throw himself into the water before the\nboat is cast away (wrecked).\"\n\nAll these proverbs, therefore, show that the wisdom of the ages\nis against worrying over things that have not yet transpired. Let\nto-morrow take care of itself. Live to-day. As Cardinal Newman's\nwonderful hymn expresses it:\n\n  I do not ask to see the distant scene,\n  One step enough for me.\n\nFurthermore, the evil we dread for to-morrow may never come. Every\nman's experience demonstrates this. The bill for which he has not\nmoney in the bank is met by the unexpected payment of an account\noverdue, or not yet due. Hence if fears come of the morrow, if we are\ntempted to worry about a grief that seems to be approaching, let us\nresolutely cast the temptation aside, and by a full occupation of\nmind and body in the work of the \"now,\" engage ourselves beyond the\npossibility of hearing the voice of the tempter.\n\nWhen one considers the words that are regarded as synonymous with\n\"worry,\" or that are related to it, he sees what cruelties lurk in the\nfacts behind the words. To grieve, fret, pine, mourn, bleed, chafe,\nyearn, droop, sink, give way to despair, all belong to the category of\nworry.\n\nPhrases like \"to sit on thorns,\" \"to be on pins and needles,\" \"to\ndrain the cup of misery to the dregs,\" show with graphic power the\nfolly and curse of worry. Why should one sit on thorns, or on pins\nand needles? If one does so accidentally he arises in a hurry, yet\nin worrying, one seems deliberately, with intent, to sit down upon\nprickles in order to compel himself to discomfort, distress, and pain.\nIs there any wisdom, when one has the cup of misery at his lips, in\ndeliberately keeping it there, and persistently drinking it to the\n\"very dregs\"? One unconsciously feels like shouting to the drinker:\n\"Put it down, you fool!\" and if the harsh command be not instantly\nobeyed, rushing up and dashing it out of the drinker's hand.\n\nTake a few more words and look at them, and see how closely they are\nrelated to worry,--to be displeased, fretted, annoyed, incommoded,\ndiscomposed, troubled, disquieted, crossed, teased, fretted, irked,\nvexed, grieved, afflicted, distressed, plagued, bothered, pestered,\nbored, harassed, perplexed, haunted. These things worry does to those\nwho yield themselves to its noxious power.\n\nWorry deliberately pains, wounds, hurts, pinches, tweaks, grates upon,\ngalls, chafes, gnaws, pricks, lancinates, lacerates, pierces, cuts,\ngravels, corrodes, mortifies, shocks, horrifies, twinges and gripes\nits victims.\n\nIt smites, beats, punishes, wrings, harrows, torments, tortures,\nracks, scarifies, crucifies, convulses, agonizes, irritates, provokes,\nstings, nettles, maltreats, bites, snaps at, assails, badgers,\nharries, persecutes, those who give it shelter.\n\nIs it not apparent, then, that the only course open for a sensible man\nor woman is to\n\nQUIT WORRYING.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE NEEDLESSNESS AND USELESSNESS OF WORRY\n\n\nOf all the mental occupations fallen into, invented, or discovered by\nman, the most needless, futile, and useless of all is the occupation\nof worry. We have heard it said often, when one was speaking of\nanother's work, or something he had done: \"He ought to be in a better\nbusiness.\" So, _in every case_, can it be said of the worrier: He's\nin a bad business; a business that ought not to exist, one without a\nsingle redeeming feature. If for no other reason the fact implied by\nthe title of this chapter ought to be sufficient to condemn it. Worry\nis needless, useless, futile, of none effect. Why push a heavy rock up\na mountain side merely to have it roll down again? Yet one might find\ngood in the physical development that came from this needless uphill\nwork. And he might laugh, and sing, and be cheery while he was doing\nit. But in the case of the worrier he not only pushes the rock up the\nhill, but he is beset with the dread that, every moment, it is going\nto roll back and kill him, and he thinks of nothing but the fear, and\nthe strain, and the distress.\n\nWhen one calmly considers, it is almost too ridiculous to write\nseriously about the needlessness and uselessness of worry; its\nfutility is so self-evident to an intelligent mind. Yet, because so\nmany otherwise intelligent and good people are cursed by it, it seems\nnecessary to show its utter uselessness. These say: \"I would stop\nworrying if I could; but I can't help it; I worry in spite of myself!\"\n\nDon't you believe it! You doubtless think your statement is true, but\nit is nothing of the kind. Worry could find no place in your mind\nif it was full to overflowing with something really useful and\nbeneficial. It is a proof either that your mind bosses you,--in other\nwords, that you cannot direct it to think upon something worth while,\nthat it is absolutely untrained, undisciplined, uncontrolled,--or that\nit is so empty, it takes to worry as a refuge against its own vacuity.\nThe fact of worry implies either that the worrier has no control over\nhis mind, or has an empty mind.\n\nNow no intelligent person will, for one moment, confess to such\nweakness of mind that he has no control over it. An unoccupied\nmind can always be occupied if one so wills. No human being is so\nconstituted that nothing appeals to him or interests him, so\nevery mind can be awakened and filled with contemplation of good\nthings--things that will help, benefit and bless, if he so desires.\n\nIn the Foreword I have referred to my own experience. Many who knew\nsome of the facts and saw the change that came over my life, have\nasked me _how_ I succeeded in eliminating worry. I refused to allow my\nmind to dwell upon harassing topics or events in my life. If I awoke\nduring the night, I turned on the light and picked up a book and\nforced my thought into another channel. If the objectionable thoughts\nobtruded during the day I did one of many things, as, for instance,\nturned to my work with a frenzy of absorption; picked up my hat\nand went for a walk; called upon friends; went to a concert; or a\nvaudeville show; took in a lecture; stood and watched the crowds;\nvisited the railway stations--anything, everything, but dwell upon the\nsubjects that were tabooed.\n\nHere was a simple and practical remedy, and I found it worked well.\nBut I can now see that there was a much better way. Where good is\nsubstituted for evil one has \"the perfect way,\" and the Apostle Paul\nrevealed himself a wise man of practical affairs, when he urged his\nreaders to \"think on the things\" that are lovely, pure, just, and of\ngood report. In my case I merely sought to prevent mental vacuity\nso that the seven devils of worry could not rush into, and take\npossession of, my empty mind; but I was indifferent, somewhat, to the\nkind of thought or mental occupation that was to keep out the thoughts\nof worry. A Nick Carter detective story was as good as a Browning\npoem, and sometimes better; a cheap and absurd show than an uplifting\nlecture or concert. How much better it would have been could I have\nhad my mind so thoroughly under control--and this control can surely\nbe gained by any and every man, woman, and child that lives,--that,\nwhen worrying thoughts obtruded, I could have said immediately and\nwith authoritative power: I will to think on this thing, or that,\nor the other. The result would have been an immediate and perfect\ncessation of the worry that disturbed, fretted, and destroyed, for the\nmind would have become engaged with something that was beneficial and\nhelpful. And remember this: God is good, and it is His pleasure to\nhelp those who are seeking to help themselves. Or to put it in a way\nthat even our agnostic friends can receive, Nature is on the side of\nthe man or woman who is seeking to live naturally, that is, rightly.\nHence, substitute good thoughts for the worrying thoughts and the\nlatter will fade away as do the mist and fog before the morning sun.\n\nHere, then, I had clearly demonstrated for myself the needlessness of\nworry: _I could prevent it if I would_. And my readers cannot too soon\ngain this positive assurance. They _can_, if they _will_. It is simply\na question of wanting to be free earnestly enough to work for freedom.\nIs freedom from worry worth while; is it worth struggling for? To me,\nit is one of the great blessings of life that worry is largely, if not\nentirely, eliminated. I would not go back to the old worrying days for\nall the wealth of Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie combined.\n\nAs for the uselessness of worry; who is there, that has studied the\naction of worry, that ever found any of the problems it was concerned\nover improved by all the hours of worry devoted to it. Worry never\nsolved a problem yet; worry muddies the water still further instead of\nclearing it; worry adds to the tangle instead of releasing it; worry\nbeclouds the mind, prevents sane judgment, confuses the reason, and\nleads one to decisions that never ought to be made, and so to an\nuncertainty, as vexatious and irritating as is the original problem\nto be solved. If the worry pointed a way out of the difficulty I\nwould extol worry and regard it as a bitter draught of medicine, to be\nswallowed in a hurry, but producing a beneficial result. But it never\ndoes anything to help; it invariably hinders; it sets one chasing\nshadows, produces _ignes fatui_ before the eyes, and ultimately leads\none into the bog.\n\nElsewhere I have referred to the Indians' attitude of mind. If a\nmatter can be changed, change it; if not grin and bear it without\ncomplaint. Here is practical wisdom. But to worry over a thing that\ncan be changed, instead of changing it, is the height of folly, and if\na matter cannot be changed why worry over it? How utterly useless is\nthe worry. Then, too, worry is the parent of nagging. Nagging is\nworry put into words,--the verbal expression of worry about or towards\nindividuals. The mother wishes her son would do differently. Can the\nboy's actions be changed? Then go to work to change them--not to worry\nover them. If they cannot be changed, why nag him, why irritate him,\nwhy make a bad matter worse? Nagging, like worry, never once did one\niota of good; it has caused infinite harm, as it sets up an irritation\nbetween those whose love might overcome the difficulty if it were let\nalone. Nagging is the constant irritation of a wound, the rubbing of\na sore, the salting an abraded place, the giving a hungry man a tract,\nreligious advice or a bible, when all he craves is food.\n\nAh, mother! many a boy has run away from home because your worry led\nyou to nag him; many a girl to-day is on the streets because father\nor mother nagged her; many a husband has \"gone on a tear\" because he\ncould not face his wife's \"worry put into words,\" even though no one\nwould attempt to deny that boy, girl and husband alike were wrong\n_in every particular_, and the \"nagger\" in the right, save in the one\nthing of worry and its consequent nagging.\n\nIn watching the lives of men and women I have been astonished, again\nand again, that the fruitlessness of their worry did not demonstrate\nits uselessness to them. No good ever comes from it. Everybody who has\nany perception sees this, agrees to it, confesses it. Then why still\npersist in it? Yet they do, and at the same time expect to be regarded\nas intelligent, sane, normal human beings, many of whom claim, as\nmembers of churches, peculiar and close kinship with God, forgetful of\nthe fact that every moment spent in worry is dishonoring to God.\n\nHow much needless anxiety, care, and absolute torture some women\nsuffer in an insane desire to keep their homes spotlessly clean. The\nhouse must be without a speck of dirt anywhere; the kitchen must be as\nspotless as the parlor; the sink must be so immaculate that you could\neat from it, if necessary; the children must always be in their best\nbibs and tuckers and appear as Little Lord Fauntleroys; and no one,\nat any time, or any circumstance, must ever appear to be dirty,\nexcept the scavenger who comes to remove the accumulated debris of the\nkitchen, and the man who occasionally assists the gardener.\n\nThese people forget that all dirt and dust is not of greater value\nthan spotless cleanliness. Let us look calmly at the problem for a few\nminutes. Here is a housewife who cannot afford help to keep her house\nas spotless as her instincts and her training desire. It is simply\nimpossible for her, personally, to go over the house daily with rag,\nduster and dustpan. If she attempts it, as she does sometimes--she\noverworks, and a breakdown is the result. What, then, is the sensible,\nthe reasonable, the only thing she should do? Sit down and \"worry\"\nover her \"untidy house\"; lament that \"the stairs have not been swept\nsince day before yesterday; that the parlor was not dusted this\nmorning; the music-room looks simply awful,\" and cry that \"if Mrs.\nBrown were to come in and see my wretchedly untidy house, I'm sure I\nshould die of shame!\" Would this help matters? Would one speck of dirt\nbe removed as the result of the worry, the wailing, and the tears? Not\na speck. Every particle would remain just as before.\n\nYet other things would not be as they were before. No woman could feel\nas I have suggested this \"worriting creature\" felt, without gendering\nirritation in husband, children and friends. Is any house that was\never built worth the alienation of dear ones? What is the dust, dirt,\ndisorder, of a really untidy house--I am supposing an extraordinary\ncase--compared with the irritation caused by a worrying housewife?\n\nFurthermore: such a woman is almost sure to break down her own health\nand become an irritable neurasthenic or hypochondriac, and thus add to\nthe burdens of those she loves.\n\nThere are women who, instead of following this course, make themselves\nwretched--and everyone else around them--by the worry of contrasting\ntheir lot with that of some one more fortunately situated than they.\n_She_ has a husband who earns more money than does hers; such an one\nhas a larger allowance and can afford more help--the worry, however,\nis the same, little matter what form it takes, and worry is the\ndestructive thing.\n\nWhat, then, shall a woman do, who has to face the fact that she cannot\ngratify her desire to keep her house immaculate, either because she\nhas not the strength to do it, or the money to hire it done. The old\nproverb will help her: \"What can't be cured must be endured.\" There\nis wonderful help in the calm, full, direct recognition of unpleasant\nfacts. Look them squarely in the face. Don't dodge them, don't deny\nthem. Know them, understand them, then defy them to destroy your\nhappiness. If you can't dust your house daily, dust it thrice a week,\nor twice, or once, and determine that you will be happy in spite of\nthe dust. The real comfort of the house need not thereby be impaired,\nas there is a vast difference between your scrupulous cleanliness and\ncareless untidiness. Things may be in order even though the floor has\na little extra dust on, or the furniture has not been dusted for four\ndays.\n\n\"But,\" you say, \"I am far less disturbed by the over work than I am by\nthe discomfort that comes from the dust.\" Then all I can say is that\nyou are wrongly balanced, according to my notion of things. Your\nhealth should be of far more value to you than your ideas of house\ntidiness, but you have reversed the importance of the two. Teach\nyourself the relative value of things. A hundred dollar bill is of\ngreater value than one for five dollars, and the life of your baby\nmore important than the value of the hundred dollar bill. Put first\nthings first, and secondly, and tertiary, and quarternary things\nin their relative positions. Your health and self-poise should come\nfirst, the comfort and happiness of husband and family next, the more\nor less spotlessness and tidiness of the house afterwards. Then, if\nyou cannot have your house as tidy as you wish, resolutely resolve\nthat you will not be disturbed. You will control your own life and not\nallow a dusty room--be it never so dusty--to destroy your comfort and\npeace of mind, and that of your loved ones.\n\nWhen a woman of this worrying type has children she soon learns that\nshe must choose between the health and happiness of her children\nand the gratification of her own passionate desire for spotless\ncleanliness. This gratification, if permanently indulged in, soon\nbecomes a disease, for surely only a diseased mind can value the\nspotlessness of a house more than the health, comfort, and happiness\nof children. Yet many women do--more's the pity. Such poor creatures\nshould learn that there is a dirtiness that is far worse than dirt in\na house--a dirtiness, a muddiness of mind, a cluttering of thought, a\nmaking of the mind a harboring place for wrong thoughts. Not wrong in\nthe sense of immoral or wicked, as these words are generally used, but\nwrong in this sense, viz., that reason shows the folly, the inutility,\nthe impracticability of attempting to bring up sane, healthy, happy,\nnormal children in a household controlled by the idea that spotless\ncleanliness is the matter of prime importance to be observed. The\ndiscomfort of children, husband, mother herself are nothing as\ncompared with keeping the house in perfect order. Any woman so\nobsessed should be sent for a short time to an insane asylum, for she\ncertainly has so reversed the proper order of values as to be so far\ninsane. She has \"cluttered up\" her mind with a wrong idea, an idea\nwhich dirties, muddies, soils her mind far worse than dust soils her\nhouse.\n\nReader, keep your mind free from such dirt--for dirt is but \"matter in\nthe wrong place.\" Far better have dust, dirt, in your house, dirt on\nyour child's hands, face, and clothes, than on your own mind to give\nyou worry, discomfort and disease.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI THE SELFISHNESS OF WORRY\n\n\nIf worry merely affected the one who worries it might be easier,\nin many cases, to view worry with equanimity and calmness. But,\nunfortunately, in the disagreeable features of life, far more than the\nagreeable, the aphorism of the apostolic writer, \"No man liveth unto\nhimself,\" seems to be more than ordinarily true. It is one proof of\nthe selfishness of the \"worrier\"--whether consciously or unconsciously\nI do not say--that he never keeps his worry to himself. He must always\n\"out with it.\" The nervous mother worrying about her baby shows it\neven to the unconscious child at her breast. When the child is older\nshe still shows it, until the little one knows as well as it knows\nwhen the sun is shining that \"mother is worrying again.\" The worrying\nwife does not keep her worry to herself; she pours it out to, or upon,\nher husband. The worrying husband is just the same. If it is the wife\nthat causes him to worry--or to think so--he pours out his worry\nin turbulent words, thus adding fuel to a fire already too hot for\ncomfort.\n\nIt is one of the chief characteristics of worry that it is seldom\nconfined to the breast of its victim. It loses its power, too often,\nwhen shut up. It must find expression in looks, in tone of voice, in\nsulkiness, in dumps, in nagging or in a voicing of its woes.\n\nIt is in this voicing of itself that worry demonstrates its inherent\nselfishness. If father, mother, wife, friends, neighbors, _anybody_\ncan give help, pleasure, joy, instruction, profit, their voices are\nalways heard with delight. If they have reasonable cautions to give\nto those they love, who seem to them to be thoughtless, regardless of\ndanger which they see or fear, or even foolhardy, let them speak out\nbravely, courageously, lovingly, and they will generally be listened\nto. But to have them voice their fretful, painful, distressing worries\nno one is benefitted, and both speaker and the one spoken to are\npositively harmed. For an unnecessary fear voiced is strengthened; it\nis made more real. If one did not feel it before, it is now planted in\nhis mind to his serious detriment, and once there, it begins to breed\nas disease germs are said to breed, by millions, and one moment of\nworry weds another moment, and the next moment a family of worries\nis born that surround, hamper and bewilder. Is this kindly, is it\nhelpful, is it loving, is it unselfish?\n\nThe questions answer themselves. The planting of worry in the mind of\nanother is heartless, cruel, unkind and selfish.\n\nAnother question naturally arises: If this course of action is\nselfish, and the worrier really desires to be unselfish, how can he\ncontrol his worry, at least so as not to communicate it to another?\nThe answer also is clear.\n\nLet him put a guard upon his lips, a watch upon his actions. Let him\nsay to himself: Though I do not, for my own sake, care to control the\nneedless worries of my life, I must not, I dare not curse other lives\nwith them. Hence I must at least keep them to myself--I must not voice\nthem, I must not display them in face, eyes or tone.\n\nThen there is the mother who worries over her child's clothing. She\nis never ceasing in her cautions. It is \"don't, don't, don't,\" from\nmorning to night, and whether this seems \"nagging\" to her or not,\nthere would be a unanimous vote on the subject were the child\nconsulted as to his feelings. Of course the boy, the girl, must be\ntaught to take care of his, her, clothes, but this is never done by\nnagging. A far better plan would be to fit a punishment which really\nbelongs to the evil or careless habit of the child. For instance, if\na boy will persist in throwing his hat anywhere, instead of hanging\nit up, let the parent give him _one_ caution, not in a threatening\nor angry way, but in just as matter of fact a fashion as if she were\ntelling him of some news: \"John, the next time you fail to hang your\nhat in its proper place I shall lock it up for three days!\"\n\nThen, if John fails, take the hat and lock it up, and _let it\nstay locked-up_, though the heavens fall. The same with a child's\nplaythings, tennis racquets, base-balls, bats, etc. As a rule one\napplication of the rule cures. This is immeasurably more sensible than\nnagging, for it produces the required result almost instantly, and\nthere is little irritation to either person concerned, while nagging\nis never effective, and irritates both all the time.\n\nOther parents worry considerably over their children getting in the\ndirt.\n\nIn an article which recently appeared in _Good Housekeeping_ Dr. Woods\nHutchinson says some sensible things on \"Children as Cabbages.\" He\nstarts out by saying: \"It is well to remember that not all dirt is\ndirty. While some kinds of dirt are exceedingly dangerous, others are\nabsolutely necessary to life.\"\n\nIf your children get into the dirty and dangerous dirt, spend your\nenergies in getting them into the other kind of dirt, rather than in\nnagging. Fall into the habit of doing the wise, the rational, the\nsane thing, because it produces results, rather than the foolish,\nirrational, insane thing which never produces a result save anger,\nirritation, and oftentimes, alienation.\n\nIn a little book written by J.J. Bell, entitled _Wee MacGregor_, there\nis a worrying mother. Fortunately she is sweet-spirited with it all,\nor it would have been unbearable.\n\nShe and her husband John, and the baby, wee Jeannie, with Macgregor\nwere going out to dinner at \"Aunt Purdie's,\" who was \"rale genteel an'\nawfu' easy offendit.\" The anxious mother was counselling her young son\nregarding his behavior at the table of that excellent lady:\n\n    'An' mind, Macgreegor, ye're no' to be askin' fur jeely till\n    ye've ett twa bits o' breed-an'-butter. It's no' mainners; an'\n    yer Aunt Purdie's rale partecclar. An' yer no' to dicht yer\n    mooth wi' yer cuff--mind that. Ye're to tak' yer hanky an'\n    let on ye're jist gi'ein' yer nib a bit wipe. An' ye're no' to\n    scale yer tea nor sup the sugar if ony's left in yer cup when\n    ye're dune drinkin'. An' if ye drap yer piece on the floor\n    ye're no' to gang efter it; ye're jist to let on ye've ett it.\n    An' ye're no'--\n\n    'Deed, Lizzie,' interposed her husband, 'ye're the yin to\n    think aboot things.'\n\n    'Weel, John, if I dinna tell Macgreegor hoo to behave hissel',\n    he'll affront me,' etc., etc., etc.\n\nWho has not thus seen the anxious mother? And who ever saw her\nworrying and anxiety do much if any good? Train your child by all\nmeans in your own home, but let up when you are going out, for your\nworry worries him, makes him self-conscious, brings about the very\ndisasters you wish to avoid, and at the same time destroys his,\nyour, and everyone's else, pleasure who observes, feels, or hears the\nexpressions of worry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCAUSES OF WORRY\n\n\nWorry is as multiform and as diverse as are the people who worry.\nIndeed worriers are the most ingenious persons in the world. When\nevery possible source of worry seems to be removed, they proceed\nimmediately to invent some new cause which an ordinary healthful mind\ncould never have conceived.\n\nThe causes of worry are innumerable. They represent the sum total\nof the errors, faults, missteps, unholy aims, ambitions, foibles,\nweaknesses and crimes of men. Every error, mistake, weakness, crime,\netc., is a source of worry--a cause of worry. Worry is connected only\nwith the weak, the human, the evil side of human nature. It has no\nplace whatever in association with goodness, purity, holiness, faith,\ncourage and trust in God. When good men and women worry, in so far as\nthey worry they are not good. Their worry is a sign of weakness, of\nlack of trust in God, of unbelief, of unfaithfulness. The man who\nknows God and his relationship to man; who knows his own spiritual\nnature and his relationship to God _never worries_. There is no\npossible place in such a man's life for worry.\n\nHence it will be seen that I believe worry to be evil, and nothing but\nevil, and, therefore, without one reclaiming or redeeming feature, for\nit can be productive of nothing but evil.\n\nIf you really desire to know the sources of your worry _study each\nworry as it comes up_. Analyse it, dissect it, weigh it, examine it\nfrom every standpoint, judge it by the one test that everything in\nlife must, and ought to submit to, viz.: its usefulness. What use\nis it to you? How necessary to your existence? How helpful is it in\nsolving the problems that confront you; how far does it aid you in\ntheir solution, wherein does it remove the obstacles before your\npathway. Find out how much it strengthens, invigorates, inspires you.\nAsk yourself how much it encourages, enheartens, emboldens you. Put\ndown on paper every slightest item of good, or help, or inspiration\nit is to you, and on the other hand, the harm, the discouragement, the\nevil, the fears it brings to you, and then strike a balance.\n\nI can tell you beforehand that after ten years' study--if so long were\nnecessary--you will fail to find one good thing in favor of worry,\nand that every item you will enumerate will be against it. Hence, why\nworry? Quit it!\n\nWorry, like all evils, feeds on itself, and grows greater by its own\nexercise. Did it decline when exercised, diminish when allowed a free\ncourse, one might let it alone, even encourage it, in order that it\nmight the sooner be dead. But, unfortunately, it works the other\nway. The more one worries the more he continues to worry. The more\nhe yields to it the greater becomes its power. It is a species of\nhypnotism: once allow it to control, each new exercise diminishes the\nvictim's power of resistance.\n\nNever was monster more cruel, more relentless, more certain to hang on\nto the bitter end than worry. He shows no mercy, has not the slightest\nspark of relenting or yielding. And his power is all the greater\nbecause it is so subtle. He wants you to be \"careful\"--taking good\ncare, however, not to let you know that he means to make you _full of\ncare_. He pleads \"love\" as the cause for his existence. He would have\nyou love your child, hence \"worry\" about him. He thus trades on your\naffection to blind you to your child's best interests by \"worrying\"\nabout him. For when worry besets you, is harassing you on every hand,\nhow can you possibly devote your wisdom, your highest intelligence to\nsafeguarding the welfare of the one you love.\n\nNever was a slave in the South, though in the hands of a Legree,\nmore to be pitied than the slave of worry. He dogs every footstep, is\nvigilant every moment. He never sleeps, never tires, never relaxes,\nnever releases his hold so long as it is possible for him to retain\nit. When you seek to awaken people to the terror, the danger, the\nhourly harm their slavery to worry is bringing to them, they are so\ncompletely in worry's power that they weakly respond: \"But I can't\nhelp it.\" And they verily believe they can't; that their bondage is\na natural thing; a state \"ordained from the foundation of the world,\"\naltogether ignoring the frightful reflection such a belief is upon the\ngoodness of God and his fatherly care for his children. Natural! It is\nthe most unnatural thing in existence. Do the birds worry? The beasts\nof the field? The clouds? The winds? The sun, moon, stars, and comets?\nThe trees? The flowers? The rain-drops? How Bryant rebukes the worrier\nin his wonderful poem \"_To a Water Fowl_,\" and Celia Thaxter in her\n\"_Sandpiper_.\" The former sings of the fowl winging its solitary way\nwhere \"rocking billows rise and sink on the chafed ocean-side,\" yet\nthough \"lone wandering\" it is not lost. And from its protection he\ndeduces the lesson:\n\n      He who, from zone to zone,\n  Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,\n  In the long way that I must tread alone\n      Will lead my steps aright.\n\nAnd so Celia Thaxter sang of the sandpiper:\n\n  He has no thought of any wrong,\n  He scans me with a fearless eye.\n\nAnd her faith expressed itself in a later verse:\n\n  I do not fear for thee, though wroth\n    The tempest rushes through the sky:\n  For are we not God's children both,\n    Thou, little sandpiper, and I?\n\nThere is no worry in Nature. It is man alone that worries. Nature goes\non her appointed way each day unperturbed, unvexed, care-free, doing\nher allotted tasks and resting absolutely in the almighty sustaining\npower behind her. Should man do any less? Should man--the reasoning\ncreature, with intelligence to see, weigh, judge, appreciate,--alone\nbe uncertain of the fatherly goodness of God; alone be unable to\ndiscern the wisdom and love behind all things? Worry, therefore, is an\nevidence that we do not trust the all-fatherliness of God.\n\nIt is also the direct product of vanity, pride and self-conceit. If\nthese three qualities of evil in the human heart could be removed a\nvast aggregate amount of worry would die instantly. No one can study\nhis fellow creatures and not soon learn that an immense amount of\nworry is caused by these three evils.\n\nWe are worried lest our claims to attention are not fully recognized,\nless our worth be not observed, our proper station accorded to us. How\nwe press our paltry little claims upon others, how we glorify our own\ninsignificant deeds; how large loom up our small and puny acts. The\nwhole universe centers in us; our ego is a most important thing;\nour work of the highest value and significance; our worth most\ninestimable.\n\nThe fact of the matter is most men and women are inestimable, their\ndeeds of value, their lives of importance. Our particular circle needs\nus, as we need those who compose it, we are all important, but few,\nindeed, are there, whose power, influence and importance reach far.\nMost of the men and women of the world are ordinary. A man may be\na king in Wall street, and yet influence but few outside of his own\nimmediate sphere. Most probably he is unknown to the great mass of\nmankind. Adventitious circumstances bring some men and women more\nprominently before the world than others, but even such fame as this\nis transient, evanescent, and of little importance. The devoted love\nof our own small circle; the reliable friendship of the few; the\nblind adoration of the pet dog are worth more than all the \"fame,\" the\n\"eclat,\" the \"renown\" of the multitude. And where we have such love,\nfriendship, and blind adoration, let us rest content therein, and\nsmile at the floods of temporary and evanescent emotion which sweep\nover the mob, but do not have us for their object. I have just read\na letter which perfectly illustrates how our vanity, our pride, and\npersonal importance bring much worry to us. The writer--practically\na stranger coming from a far-away state--evidently expected to be\nreceived with a cordial welcome and open arms, by one who scarcely\nknew him, given an important place in a lengthy program where men\nof national reputation were to speak, and generally be treated with\ndeference and respect. Unfortunately his name was not placed _in\nfull_ on the program,--curtly initialed he called it--and owing to\nits length \"the chairman caused me to spoil my remarks by asking me to\nshorten them,\" and a hotel clerk \"outrageously insulted\" him when he\nasked for information. Then, to make ill matters worse--piling Ossa.\nupon Pelion--he was asked to speak at a certain club, with others.\nOne of the newspapers, in reporting the event, commented upon what the\nothers said and did but ignore him. This he thought might have been\nmerely an oversight, but when, the next day, he saw another report\nwherein he was not mentioned he was certain \"it was a deliberate\nintention to ignore\" him. He then asks that the person to whom he\nwrites \"try to find out who is responsible for this affront,\" and tell\nhim--in order that he may worry some more, I suppose, over trying to\n\"get back at him.\"\n\nPoor, poor fellow, how he is to be pitied for being so \"sensitive,\" so\nsure that people regard him enough to want to affront him.\n\nHere is a perfect illustration of the worries caused by vanity;\nfive complaints in one letter, of indignities, or affronts, that an\nordinary, robust red-blooded man would have passed by without notice.\nIf I were to worry over the times I have been ignored and neglected\nI should worry every day. I am fairly well known to many hundreds of\nthousands of people who read my books, my magazine articles, and hear\nmy lectures, yet I often go to cities and there are no brass bands,\nno committee, flowers, or banquet to welcome me. No! indeed, the\nindignity is thrust upon me of having to walk to the hotel, carry\nmy own grip, and register, the same as any other ordinary, common,\neveryday man! Why should not my blood boil when I think of it? Then,\ntoo, when I recall how often my addresses are ignored in the local\npress, ought not I to be aroused to fierce ire? When a hotel clerk\nfails to recognize my national importance and gives me a flippant\nanswer when I ask for information should I not deem it time that the\nSecretary of State interfere and write a State paper upon the matter?\n\nOh vanity, conceit, pride, how many sleepless hours of worry and fret\nyou bring to your victims, and the pitiable, the lamentable thing\nabout it all is that they congratulate themselves upon being filled\nwith \"laudable pride,\" \"recognizing their own importance,\" and\nknowing that \"honorable ambition\" is beneficial. Nothing that causes\nunnecessary heart-aches and worry is worth while, and of all the\nprolific causes of these woes commend me to the vanity, the conceit,\nthe pride of small minds and petty natures.\n\nFalse pride leads its victim to want to make a false impression. He\nputs on a false appearance. He wishes to appear wiser, better, in\neasier circumstances, richer than he is. He wears a false front. He is\nunnatural. He dare not--having decided to make the appearance, and win\nthe impression of falseness--be natural. Hence he is self-conscious\nall the time lest he make a slip, contradict himself, lose the result\nhe is seeking to attain. He is to be compared to an actor whose part\nrequires him to wear a wig, a false moustache, a false chin. In the\nhurry of preparation these shams are not adjusted properly and the\nactor rushes on the stage fearful every moment lest his wig is\nawry, his moustache fall off, or the chin slip aside and make him\nridiculous. He dare not stop to make sure, to \"fix\" them if they are\nwrong, as that would reveal their falsity immediately. He can only\nplay on, sweating blood the while.\n\nIn the case of the actor one can laugh at the temporary fear and\nworry, but what a truly pitiable object is the man, the woman, whose\nwhole life is one dread worry lest his, her, false appearance be\ndiscovered. And while pride and vanity are not the only sources of\nthese attempts to make false impressions upon others they are a most\nprolific source. In another chapter I have treated more fully of this\nphase of the subject.\n\nWastefulness, extravagance, is a prolific source of worry. Spend\nto-day, starve to-morrow. Throw your money to the birds to-day;\nto-morrow the crow, jay, and vulture will laugh and mock at you. Feast\nto-day; next week you may starve. Riches take to themselves wings\nand fly away. No one is absolutely safe, and while many thousands\ngo through life indifferent about their expenditures, wasteful and\nextravagant and do not seem to be brought to time therefor, it must\nnot be forgotten that tens of thousands start out to do the same thing\nand fail. What is the result? Worry over the folly of the attempt;\nworry as to where the necessary things for the future are coming from!\n\nWhile I would not have the well-to-do feel that they must be niggardly\nI would earnestly warn them against extravagance, against the\nacquiring of expensive habits of wastefulness that later on may be\nchains of a cruel bondage. Why forge fetters upon oneself? Far better\nbe free now and thus cultivate freedom for whatever future may come.\nFor as sure as sure can be wilful waste and reckless extravagance now\nwill sometime or other produce worry.\n\nOne great, deep, awful source of worry is _our failure to accept the\ninevitable_. Something happens,--we wilfully shut our eyes to the fact\nthat this something has changed _forever_ the current of our lives,\nand if the new current _seems_ evil, if it brings discomfort,\nseparation, change of circumstance, etc., we worry, and worry, and\ncontinue to worry. This is lamentably foolish, utterly absurd and\naltogether reprehensible. Let us resolutely face the facts, accept\nthem, and then reshape our lives, bravely and valiantly, to suit the\nnew conditions.\n\nFor instance a friend of mine spent twenty years in the employ of a\ngreat corporation. As a reward of faithful service he was finally put\nin a responsible position as the head of a department. A few months\nago he was sent East on a special mission connected with his work.\nJust before his return the corporation elected a new president,\nwho \"shook up\" the whole concern, changed around several officials,\ndismissed others, and in the case of my friend, supplanted him by a\nnew man imported from the East, offering him a subordinate position,\nbut, at the same salary he had before been receiving.\n\nHow should this man have treated this settled fixed fact in his\nlife? He had two great broad pathways open to him. In one he would\ndeliberately recognize and accept the changed condition, acquiese in\nit and live accordingly. It is not pleasant to be supplanted, but if\nanother man is appointed to do the work you have been doing, and your\nsuperiors think he can do it better than you have been doing it, then\nmanfully face the facts and accord him the most sincere and hearty\nsupport. It may be hard, but our training and discipline,--which means\nour improvement and advancement--come, not from doing the easy and\npleasant things, but from striving, cheerfully and pleasantly to do\nthe arduous and disagreeable ones. The other way open for my friend\nwas to resent the change, accept it with anger, let his vanity be\nwounded, and begin to worry over it. What would have been the probable\nresult? The moment he began to worry his efficiency would have\ndecreased, and he would thus have prepared himself for another \"blow\"\nfrom his employers, another change less to his advantage, and with a\npossible reduction in salary. His employers, too, would have pointed\nto his decreased efficiency--the only thing they consider--as\njustification for their act.\n\nI would not say that if a man, in such a case as I have described,\ndeems that he has been treated unjustly, should not protest, but, when\nhe has protested, and a decision has been rendered against him let him\naccept the judgment with serenity, refuse to worry over it, and go to\nwork with loyalty and faithfulness, or else seek new employment.\n\nEven, on the other hand, were he to have been discharged, there could\nhave come no good from yielding to worry. _Accept the inevitable_, do\nnot argue or fret about it, put worry aside, go to work to find a new\nposition, and make what seemed to be an evil the stepping-stone to\nsomething better.\n\nMrs. Jessie Benton Fremont, the wife of the gallant pathfinder,\nGeneral Fremont, was afflicted with deafness in the later years of her\nlife. She,--the petted and flattered, the caressed and spoiled child\nof fortune, the honored and respected woman of power and superior\nability--deaf, and unable to participate in the conversation going\non around her. Many a woman under these conditions, would have become\nirritable, irascible, and a reviler of Fate. To any woman it would\nhave been a great deprivation, but to one mentally endowed as Mrs.\nFremont, it was especially severe. Yet did she \"worry\" about it? No!\nbravely, cheerfully, boldly, she _accepted the inevitable_, and\nin effect defied the deafness that had come to her to destroy her\nhappiness, embitter her life, take away the serenity of her mind and\nthe equipoise of her soul. If there had to be a battle to gain this\nhigh plane of acceptance, she fought it out in secret, for her friends\nand the world never heard a word of a murmur from her. I had the joy\nof a talk with her about it, for it was a joy to have her make light\nof her affliction, in the great number of good things wherein God\nhad blessed her. Laughingly she said: \"Even in deafness I find many\ncompensations. One is never bored by conversation that is neither\nintelligent, instructive or interesting. I can go to sleep under the\nmost persistent flood of boredom, and like the proverbial water on a\nduck's back it never bothers me. Again, I never hear the unpleasant\nthings said about either my friends or my enemies, and what a blessing\nthat is. I am also spared hearing about many of the evils, the\ndisagreeable, the unpleasant and horrible things of life that I cannot\nchange, help, or alleviate, and I am thankful for my ignorance.\nThen, again, when people say things that I can and do hear--in my\ntrumpet--that I don't think anyone should ever say, I can rebuke them\nby making them think that I heard them say the very opposite of what\nthey did say, and I smile upon them 'and am a villain still.'\"\n\nCharles F. Lummis, the well-known litterateur and organizer of the\nSouth-West Museum, of Los Angeles, after using his eyes and brain more\nliberally than most men do in a lifetime thrice, or four times as long\nas his, was unfortunately struck blind. Did he \"worry\" over it, and\nfret himself into a worse condition? No! not for a moment. Cheerfully\nhe accepted the inevitable, got someone to read and write for him, to\nguide him through the streets, and went ahead with his work just as\nif nothing had happened, looking forward to the time when his eyesight\nwould be restored to him and hopefully and intelligently worked to\nthat end. In a year or so he and his friends were made happy by that\ncoming to pass, but even had it not been so, I am assured Dr. Lummis\nwould have faced the inevitable without a whimper, a cry, or a word of\nworry or complaint.\n\nThose who yield to worry over small physical ills should read his\ninspiring _My Friend Will_,[A] a personal record of his sucessful\nstruggle against two severe and prostrating attacks of paralysis. One\nperusal will show them the folly and futility of worry; a second will\nshame them because they have so little self-control as to spend their\ntime, strength, and energy in worry; and a third perusal will lead\nthem to drive every fragment of worry out of the hidden recesses\nof their minds and set them upon a better way--a way of serenity,\nequipoise, and healthful, strenuous, yet joyous and radiant living.\n\n[Footnote A:_My Friend Will_, by C.F. Lummis, A.C. McClurg Co.,\nChicago.]\n\nRecently I had a conversation with the former superintendent of a poor\nfarm, which bears upon this subject in a practical way. In relating\nsome of his experiences he told of a \"rough-neck\"--a term implying\nan ignorant man of rude, turbulent, quarrelsome disposition--who\nhad threatened to kill the foreman of the farm. Owing to their\nirreconcilable differences the rough inmate decided to leave and so\ninformed the superintendent, thus practically dismissing himself from\nthe institution. A year later he returned and asked to be re-admitted.\nAfter a survey of the whole situation the superintendent decided that\nit was not wise to re-admit him, and that he would better secure\na situation for him outside. He offered to do so and the man left\napparently satisfied. Three days later he reappeared, entered the\noffice with a loaded and cocked revolver held behind his back, and\nabruptly announced: \"I've come to blow out your brains.\" Before he\ncould shoot the superintendent was upon him and a fierce struggle\nensued for the possession of the weapon. The superintendent at last\ntook it away, secured help and handcuffed the would-be murderer.\nRealizing that his act was the result of at least partial insanity,\nthe was-to-be victim did not press the charge of murderous assault but\nallowed--indeed urged that he be sent to the insane asylum where he\nnow is.\n\nNow this is the point I wish to make. It is perfectly within the\nbounds of possibility that this man will some day be regarded as\nsafely sane. Yet it is well known by the awful experiences of many\nsuch cases that it is both possible and probable that during the\nmonths or years of his incarceration he will continue to harbor, even\nto feed and foster the bitter feeling, the hatred, perhaps, that\nled him to attempt the murder of the superintendent, and that on his\nrelease he will again attempt to carry out his nefarious and awful\ndesign.\n\nWhat, then, should be the mental attitude of the superintendent and\nhis family? Ought they not to be worried? I got the answer for my\nreaders from this man, and it is so perfectly in accord with my own\nprinciples that I find great pleasure in recording it. Said he:\n\n    Don't think for one moment that I minimize the possible\n    danger. The asylum physician who was familiar with the whole\n    circumstances warned me not to rest in fancied security. I\n    have notified the proper officials that the man who attempted\n    to murder me is not to be released either as cured or on\n    parole without giving me sufficient notice. I do not wish that\n    he should be kept in the asylum a single day longer than is\n    fully necessary, but before I allow him to be released I must\n    be thoroughly satisfied that he has no murderous designs on\n    me, and that he is truly and satisfactorily repentant for\n    the attack he made when, ostensibly, he was mentally\n    irresponsible. I shall require that he be put on record\n    as fully understanding and appreciating his own personal\n    responsibility for my safety--so that should he still hold any\n    wrongful designs, and afterwards succeed in carrying them\n    out, he or his attorneys will be debarred from again pleading\n    insanity or mental incompetency.\n\n    Hence while I fully realize the possibility of danger I do not\n    have a moment's worry about it. I have done and shall do all I\n    can, satisfactorily, to protect myself, without any feeling of\n    harshness or desire to injure the poor fellow, and there I let\n    the matter rest to take care of itself.\n\nThis is practical wisdom. This is sane philosophy. Not ignoring the\ndanger, pooh-pooing it, scoffing at it and refusing to recognize\nit, but calmly, sanely, with a kindly heart looking at possible\ncontingencies, preparing for them, and then serenely trusting to the\nspiritual forces of life to control events to a wise and satisfactory\nissue.\n\nCan you suggest anything better? Is not such a course immeasurably\nbetter than to allow himself to worry, and fret and fear all the time?\nPractical precaution, _taken without enmity_--note these italicized\nwords--trustful serenity, faithful performance of present duty\nunhampered by fears and worries--this is the rational, normal,\nphilosophic, sane course to follow.\n\nAnother great source of worry is _our failure to distinguish\nessentials from non-essentials_. What are the essentials for life? For\na man, honesty, truth, earnestness, strength, health, ability to work,\nand work to do. He may or may not be handsome; he may or may not have\nwealth, position, fame, education; but to be a man among men, these\nother things he must have. For a woman,--health, love, work, and such\nvirtues as both men and women need. She might enjoy friends, but they\nare not essential as health or work; she would be a strange woman\nif she did not prize beauty, but devoted love is worth far more than\nbeauty or all the conquests it brings. What is the essential for\na chair?--its capacity to be used to sit upon with comfort. A\nhouse?--that it is adapted to the making of a home. You don't buy a\nprinting-press to curl your hair with but to print, and in accordance\nwith its printing power is it judged. A boat's usefulness is\ndetermined by its worthiness in the water, to carry safely, rapidly,\nlargely as is demanded of it.\n\nThis is the judgement sanity demands of everything. What is\nessential--What not? Is it essential to be a society leader, to\nbelong to every club, to hold office, to give as many dinners as one's\nneighbors, to have a bigger house, furniture with brighter polish,\nbigger carvings and more ugly designs than anyone else in town,\nto have our names in the papers oftener than others, to have more\nservants, a newer style automobile, put on more show, pomp, ceremony\nand circumstance than our friends?\n\nBy no means! Oh for men and women who have the discerning power--the\nsight for the essential things, the determination to have them and\nlet non-essentials go. They are the wise ones, the happy ones, the\nfree-from-worry ones.\n\nLater I shall refer extensively to Mrs. Canfield's book _The Squirrel\nCage_. She has many wise utterances on this phase of the worry\nquestion. For instance, in referring to the mad race for wealth and\nposition that keeps a man away from home so many hours of the day\nthat his wife and child scarce know him she introduces the following\ndialogue:\n\n    One of them whose house isn't far from mine, told me that he\n    hadn't seen his children, except asleep, for three weeks.\n\n    'But something ought to be done about it!' The girl's\n    deep-lying instinct for instant reparation rose up hotly.\n\n    'Are they so much worse off than most American business men?'\n    queried Rankin. 'Do any of them feel they can take the time\n    to see much more than the outside of their children; and isn't\n    seeing them asleep about as--'\n\n    Lydia cut him short quickly. 'You're always blaming them for\n    that,' she cried. 'You ought to pity them. They can't help it.\n    It's better for the children to have bread and butter, isn't\n    it--'\n\n    Rankin shook his head. 'I can't be fooled with that sort of\n    talk--I've lived with too many kinds of people. At least half\n    the time it is not a question of bread and butter. It's a\n    question of giving the children bread and butter and sugar\n    rather than bread and butter and father. Of course, I'm a\n    fanatic on the subject. I'd rather leave off even the butter\n    than the father--let alone the sugar.'\n\n    Later on Lydia herself lost her father and after his death\n    her own wail was: 'I never lived with my father. He was always\n    away in the morning before I was up. I was away, or busy, in\n    the evening when he was there. On Sundays he never went to\n    church as mother and I did--I suppose now because he had some\n    other religion of his own. But if he had I never knew what it\n    was--or anything else that was in his mind or heart. It never\n    occurred to me that I could. He tried to love me--I remember\n    so many times now--and _that_ makes me cry!--how he tried\n    to love me! He was so glad to see me when I got home from\n    Europe--but he never knew anything that happened to me. I\n    told you once before that when I had pneumonia and nearly died\n    mother kept it from him because he was on a big case. It was\n    all like that--always. He never knew.'\n\n    Dr. Melton broke in, his voice uncertain, his face horrified:\n    'Lydia, I cannot let you go on! you are unfair--you shock me.\n    You are morbid! I knew your father intimately. He loved you\n    beyond expression. He would have done anything for you. But\n    his profession is an exacting one. Put yourself in his place a\n    little. It is all or nothing in the law--as in business.'\n\n    But Lydia replied: 'When you bring children Into the world,\n    you expect to have them cost you some money, don't you? You\n    know you mustn't let them die of starvation. Why oughtn't you\n    to expect to have them cost you thought, and some sharing of\n    your life with them, and some time--real time, not just scraps\n    that you can't use for business?'\n\n    She made the same appeal once to her husband in regard to\n    their own lives. She wanted to see and know more of him, his\n    business, his inner life, and this was her cry: 'Paul, I'm\n    sure there's something the matter with the way we live--I\n    don't like it! I don't see that it helps us a bit--or anyone\n    else--you're just killing yourself to make money that goes\n    to get things we don't need nearly as much as we need more\n    of each other! We're not getting a bit nearer to each\n    other--actually further away, for we're both getting different\n    from what we were without the other's knowing how! And we're\n    not getting nicer--and what's the use of living if we don't do\n    that? We're just getting more and more set on scrambling ahead\n    of other people. And we're not even having a good time out\n    of it! And here is Ariadne--and another one coming--and we've\n    nothing to give them but just this--this--this--\n\n    Paul laughed a little impatiently, irritated and uneasy, as\n    he always was at any attempt to examine too closely the\n    foundations of existing ideas. 'Why, Lydia, what's the matter\n    with you? You sound as though you'd been reading some fool\n    socialist literature or something.'\n\n    You know I don't read anything, Paul. I never hear about\n    anything but novels. I never have time for anything else, and\n    very likely I couldn't understand it if I read it, not having\n    any education. That's one thing I want you to help me with.\n    All I want is a chance for us to live together a little more,\n    to have a few more thoughts in common, and oh! to be trying to\n    be making something better out of ourselves for our children's\n    sake. I can't see that we're learning to be anything but--you,\n    to be an efficient machine for making money, I to think of how\n    to entertain as though we had more money than we really have.\n    I don't seem really to know you or live with you any more\n    than if we were two guests stopping at the same hotel. If\n    socialists are trying to fix things better, why shouldn't we\n    have time--both of us--to read their books; and you could help\n    me know what they mean?'\n\n    Paul laughed again, a scornful, hateful laugh, which brought\n    the color up to Lydia's pale face like a blow. 'I gather,\n    then, Lydia, that what you're asking me to do is to neglect my\n    business in order to read socialistic literature with you?'\n\n    His wife's rare resentment rose. She spoke with dignity: 'I\n    begged you to be serious, Paul, and to try to understand what\n    I mean, although I'm so fumbling, and say it so badly. As for\n    its being impossible to change things, I've heard you say a\n    great many times that there are no conditions that can't be\n    changed if people would really try--'\n\n    'Good heavens! I said that of _business_ conditions!' shouted\n    Paul, outraged at being so misquoted.\n\n    'Well, if it's true of them--No; I feel that things are the\n    way they are because we don't really care enough to have them\n    some other way. If you really cared as much about sharing a\n    part of your life with me--really sharing--as you do about\n    getting the Washburn contract--'\n\n    Her indignant and angry tone, so entirely unusual, moved Paul,\n    more than her words, to shocked protest. He looked deeply\n    wounded, and his accent was that of a man righteously\n    aggrieved. 'Lydia, I lay most of this absurd outbreak to your\n    nervous condition, and so I can't blame you for it. But I\n    can't help pointing out to you that it is entirely uncalled\n    for. There are few women who have a husband as absolutely\n    devoted as yours. You grumble about my not sharing my life\n    with you--why, I _give_ it to you entire!' His astonished\n    bitterness grew as he voiced it. 'What am I working so hard\n    for if not to provide for you and our child--our children!\n    Good Heavens! What more _can_ I do for you than to keep my\n    nose on the grindstone every minute. There are limits to even\n    a husband's time and endurance and capacity for work.'\n\nHence it will be seen that I would have one Quit Worrying about the\nnon-essentials of life, and this is best done by giving full heed to\nthe essentials and letting the others go. Naturally, if one wilfully\nand purposefully determines to follow non-essentials, he may as well\nrecognize the fact soon as late that he has deliberately chosen\na course that cannot fail to produce its own many and irritating\nworries.\n\nAnother serious cause of worry is bashfulness. One who is bashful\nfinds in his intercourse with his fellows many worries. His hands and\nfeet are too large, he blushes at a word, he doesn't know what to say\nor how, he is confused if attention is directed his way, his thoughts\nfly to the ends of the earth the moment he is addressed, and if he is\nexpected to say anything, his worries increase so that his pain and\ndistress are manifest to all. To such an one I would say: Assert your\nmanhood, your womanhood. Brace up. Face the music. Remember these\nfacts. You are dealing with men and women, youths and maidens, of the\nsame flesh and blood, mentality as yourself. You average up with\nthe rest of them. Why should you be afraid? Call upon your reasoning\npower. Assert the dignity of your own existence. You are here by the\nwill of God as much as they. There is a purpose in your creation as\nmuch as in theirs. You have a right to be seen and heard as well as\nhave they. Your life may be charged with importance to mankind far\nmore than theirs. Anyhow for what it is, large or small, you are going\nto use it to the full, and you do not propose to be laughed out of it,\nsneered out of it, either by the endeavors of others or by your own\nfears of others. Then, when you have once fully reasoned the thing\nout, do not hesitate to plunge into the fullest possible association\nwith your fellows. Brave them, defy them (in your own heart),\nresolutely face them, and my word and assurance for it, they will lose\ntheir terror, and you will lose your bashfulness with a speed that\nwill astonish you.\n\nClosely allied to bashfulness as a cause of many worries is hyper-\nor super-sensitiveness. And yet it is an entirely different mental\nattitude. Hyper-sensitiveness may cause bashfulness, but there are\nmany thousands of hyper-sensitives who have not a spark of bashfulness\nin their condition. They are full of vanity or self-conceit. Elsewhere\nI have referred to one of these. Or they are hyper-sensitive in regard\nto their health. They mustn't do this, or that, or the other, they\nmust be careful not to sit near a window, allow a door to be open,\nor go into an unwarmed room. Their feet must never be wet, or their\nclothing, and as for sleeping in a cold room, or getting up before the\nfire is lighted, they could not live through such awful hardships.\n\nI have no desire to excoriate or make fun of those who really suffer\nfrom chronic invalidism, yet I am fully assured that much of the\nhyper-sensitiveness of the neurasthenic and hypochondriac could be\nremoved by a little rude, rough and tumble contact with life. It\nwould do most of these people no harm to follow the advice given\nby Abernethy, the great English physician, to a pampered, overfed\nhyper-sensitive: Live on six pence a day _and earn it_. I have found\nfew hyper-sensitives among the poor. Poverty is a fine cure for most\ncases, though there are those who cling to their pride of birth of\neducation, or God knows what of insane belief in their superiority\nover ordinary mortals, and make that the occasion, or cause, of the\ninnumerable and fretting worries of hyper-sensitiveness.\n\nAnother serious cause of worry, in this busy, bustling, rapid age,\nis the need we feel for hurry. We are caught in the mad rush and\nits influence leads us to feel that we, too, must rush. There is no\nearthly reason for our hurry, and yet we cannot seem to help it.\n\nHurry means worry. Rush spells fret. Haste makes waste. You live in\nthe country and are a commuter. You must be in the city on the stroke\nof nine. To do this, you must catch the 8:07. You have your breakfast\nto get and it takes six minutes to walk to the station. No one can do\nit comfortably in less. Yet every morning, ever since you took this\ncountry cottage, you have had to rush through your breakfast, and rush\nto the depot in order to catch the train. Thus starting the day on the\nrush, you have continued \"on the stretch\" all day, and get back home\nat night tired out, fretted and worried \"almost to death.\" Even when\nyou sit down to breakfast, you begin to worry if wifie doesn't have\neverything ready. You know you'll be late. You feel it, and if the\ntoast and coffee are not on the table the moment you sit down, your\nquerelous complaints strike the morning air.\n\nNow what's the use?\n\nWhy don't you get up ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes earlier, and thus\ngive yourself time to eat comfortably, and thus get over the worry of\nyour rush? Set the alarm clock for 7:00, or 6:45, or even 6:30. Far\nbetter get up half an hour too early, than worry yourself, your wife,\nand the whole household by your insane hurry. Your worry is wholly\nunnecessary and shows a fearful lack of simple intelligence.\n\nAnnie Laurie, who writes many sage counsels in the _San Francisco\nExaminer_, had an excellent article on this subject in the issue of\nDecember 31, 1915. She wrote:\n\nHere is something that I saw out my window--it has given me the big\nthought for my biggest New Year's resolution. The man at the corner\nhouse ran down the steps in a terrible hurry. He saw the car coming\nup the hill and whistled to it from the porch, but the man who was\nrunning the car did not hear the whistle. Anyway, he didn't stop the\ncar, and the man on the steps looked as if he'd like to catch the\nconductor of that car and do something distinctly unfriendly to\nhim, and do it right then and there. He jammed his hat down over his\nforehead and started walking very fast.\n\n\"What's your hurry?\" said the man he was passing on the corner.\n\"What's your hurry, Joe?\" and the man on the corner held out his hand.\n\n\"Well, I'll be--,\" said Joe, and he held out his hand, too, \"if it\nisn't--\"\n\nAnd it was, and they both laughed and shook hands and clapped each\nother on the back and shook hands again.\n\n\"What's your hurry?\" said the man on the corner again.\n\n\"I dun-no,\" said the man who was so cross because he'd lost his car.\n\"Nothing much, I guess,\" and he laughed and the other man laughed and\nthey shook hands again. And the last I saw of them they had started\ndown the street right In the opposite direction from which the man in\nthe hurry had started to go, and they weren't in a hurry at all.\n\nDo you know what I wished right then and there? I wished that every\ntime I get into the senseless habit of rushing everywhere and tearing\nthrough everything as if it was my last day on earth and there\nwasn't a minute left to lose, somebody would stop me on the corner of\nwhatever street of circumstance I may be starting to cross and say to\nme in friendly fashion:\n\n\"What's the hurry?\"\n\nWhat is the hurry, after all? Where are we all going? What for?\n\nWhat difference does it make whether I read my paper at 8 o'clock in\nthe morning or at half-past 9?\n\nWill the world stop swinging in its orbit if I don't meet just so\nmany people a day, write so many letters, hear so many lectures, skim\nthrough so many books? Of course if I'm earning my living I must work\nfor it and work not only honestly but hard. But it seems to me that\nmost of the terrific hurrying we do hasn't much to do with really\nessential work after all. It's a kind of habit we get into, a sort of\nmadness, like the thing that overtakes the crowd at a ferry landing or\nthe entrance to a train. I've seen men, and women, too, fairly fight\nto get onto a particular car when the next car would have done just\nexactly as well.\n\nWhere are they going in such a hurry? To save a life? To mend a broken\nheart? To help to heal a wounded spirit? Or are they just rushing\nbecause the rest do it?\n\nWhat do they get out of life--these people who are always in a rush?\n\nLook! The laurel tree in my California garden is full of bursting\nbuds! The rains are beginning and the trees will soon be flecked with\na silver veil of blossoms. I hadn't noticed it before. I've been too\nbusy.\n\nWhat's your hurry? Come, friend of my heart, I'll say that to you\nto-day and say it in deep and friendly earnest.\n\n    What's your hurry? Come, let's go for a walk together and see\n    if we can find out. Let us keep finding out through all the\n    new year.\n\nThere are many other causes of worry, some of them so insidious, so\npowerful, as to call for treatment in special chapters.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nPROTEAN FORMS OF WORRY\n\n\nIn a preceding chapter, I have shown that worry is a product of our\nmodern civilization, and that it belongs only to the Occidental world.\nIt is a modern disease, prevalent only among the so-called civilized\npeoples. There is no doubt that in many respects we _are_ what we call\nourselves--the most highly civilized people in the world. But do we\nnot pay too high a price for much of our civilization? If it is such\nthat it fails to enable us to conserve our health, our powers of\nenjoyment, our spontaneity, our mental vigor, our spirituality, and\nthe exuberant radiance of our life--bodily, mental, spiritual--I feel\nthat we need to examine it carefully and find out wherein lies its\ninadequacy or its insufficiency.\n\nWhile our civilization has reached some very elevated points, and some\nmen have made wonderful advancement in varied fields, it cannot be\ndenied that the mass of men and women are still groping along in\nthe darkness of mental mediocrity, and on the mud-flats of the\ncommonplace. Ten thousand men and women can now read where ten alone\nread a few centuries ago. But what are the ten thousand reading? That\nwhich will elevate, improve, benefit? See the piles of sensational\nyellow novels, magazines, and newspapers that deluge us day by day,\nweek by week, month by month, for the answer. True, there are many who\ndesire the better forms of literature, and for these we give thanks;\nthey are of the salt that saves our civilization.\n\nI do not wish to seem, even, to be cynical or pessimistic, but when\nI look at some of the mental pabulum that our newspapers supply,\nI cannot but feel that we are making vast efforts to maintain the\ncommonplace and dignify the trivial.\n\nFor instance: Look at the large place the Beauty Department of a\nnewspaper occupies in the thoughts of thousands of women and girls.\nInstead of seeking to know what they should do to keep their bodies\nand minds healthful and vigorous, they are deeply concerned over\ntheir physical appearance. They write and ask questions that show how\nworried they are about their skin--freckles, pimples, discolorations,\npatches, etc.--their complexion, their hair, its color, glossiness,\nquantity, how it should be dressed, and a thousand and one things that\nclearly reveal the _improper emphasis_ placed upon them. I do not wish\nto ignore the basic facts behind these anxious questionings. It is\nright and proper that women (and men also) should give due attention\nto their physical appearance. But when it becomes a mere matter of\nthe _outward_ show of cosmetics, powders, rouges, washes, pencils, and\nthings that affect the outside only, then the emphasis is in the wrong\nplace, and we are worrying about the wrong thing. Our appearance is\nmainly the result of our physical and mental condition. If the body\nis healthy, the skin and hair will need no especial attention, and,\nindeed, every wise person knows that the application of many of\nthe cosmetics, etc., commonly used, is injurious, if not positively\ndangerous.\n\nThen, too, observation shows that too many women and girls go beyond\nreasonable attention to these matters and begin to worry over them.\nOnce become slaves to worry, and every hour of the day some new\nirritant will arise. Some new \"dope\" is advertised; some new fashion\ndevised; some new frivolity developed. Vanity and worry now begin\nto vie with each other as to which shall annoy and vex, sting and\nirritate their victim the more. Each is a nightmare of a different\nbreed, but no sooner does one bound from the saddle, before the other\nputs in an appearance and compels its victim to a performance. Only\na thorough awakening can shake such nightmares off, and comparatively\nfew have any desire to be awakened. I have watched such victims and\nthey arouse in me both laughter and sadness. One is sure her hair\nis not the proper color to match her complexion and eyes. It must\nbe dyed. Then follows the worries as to what dye she shall use, and\nmethods of application. Invariably the results produce worry, for they\nare never satisfactory, and now she is worried while dressing, while\neating, and when she goes out into the street, lest people notice that\nher hair is improperly dyed. Every stranger that looks at her adds to\nthe worry, for it confirms her previous fears that she does not look\nall right. If she tries another hair of the dog that has already\nbitten her and allows the hair specialist to guide her again, she goes\nthrough more worries of similar fashion. She must treat her hair in a\ncertain way to conform to prevailing styles--and so she worries hourly\nover a matter that, at the outside, should occupy her attention for a\nfew minutes of each day.\n\nThere are men who are equally worried over their appearance. Their\nhair is not growing properly, or their ears are not the proper shape,\nor their ears are too large, or their hands are too rough, or their\ncomplexion doesn't match the ties they like to wear, or some equally\nfoolish and nonsensical thing. Some wish to be taller, others not so\ntall; quite an army seeks to be thinner and another of equal numbers\ndesires to be stouter; some wish they were blondes, and others that\nthey were brunettes. The result is that drug-stores, beauty-parlors,\nand complexion specialists for men and women are kept busy all their\ntime, robbing poor, hard-working creatures of their earnings because\nof insane worries that they are not appearing as well as they ought to\ndo.\n\nClothing is a perpetual source of worry to thousands. They must keep\nup with the styles, the latest fashions, for to be \"out of fashion,\"\n\"a back number,\" gives them \"a conniption fit.\" An out-of-date hat,\nor shirt-waist, jacket, coat, skirt, or shoe humiliates and distresses\nthem more than would a violation of the moral law--provided it were\nundetected.\n\nTo these, my worrying friends, I continually put the question: Is it\nworth while? Is the game worth the shot? What do you gain for all\nyour worry? Rest and peace of mind? Alas, no! If the worry and effort\naccomplished anything, I would be the last to deprecate it, but\nobservation and experience have taught me that _the more you yield\nto these demons of vanity and worry, the more relentlessly they harry\nyou_. They veritably are demons that seize you by the throat and hang\non like grim death until they suffocate and strangle you.\n\nDo you propose, therefore, any longer to submit? Are you wilfully and\nknowingly going to allow yourself to remain within their grasp?\nYou have a remedy in your own hands. Kill your foolish vanity by\ndetermining to accept yourself as you are. All the efforts in the\nworld will not make any changes worth while. Fix upon the habits of\ndress, etc., that good sense tells you are reasonable and in accord\nwith your age, your position and your purse, and then follow them\nregardless of the fashion or the prevailing style. You know as well as\nI that, unless you are a near-millionaire, you cannot possibly keep\nup with the many and various changes demanded by current fashion. Then\nwhy worry yourself by trying? Why spend your small income upon the\nunattainable, or upon that which, even if you could attain it, you\nwould find unsatisfying and incomplete?\n\nIn your case, worry is certainly the result of mental inoccupancy.\nThis is sometimes called \"empty headedness,\" and while the term seems\nsomewhat harsh and rough, it is pretty near the truth. If you spent\none-tenth the amount of energy seeking to put something _into_ your\nhead that you spend worrying as to what you shall put _on_ your head,\nand how to fix it up, your life would soon be far more different than\nyou can now conceive.\n\nCarelessness and laziness are both great causes of worry. The careless\nman, the lazy man are each indifferent as to how their work is\ndone; such men seldom do well that which they undertake. Everything\ncarelessly or lazily done is incomplete, inadequate, incompetent, and,\ntherefore, a source of distress, discontent, and worry. A careless or\nlazy plumber causes much worry, for, even though his victims may have\nlearned the lesson I am endeavoring to inculcate throughout these\npages, it is a self-evident proposition that they will not allow his\nindifferent work to stand without correction. Therefore, the telephone\nbell calls continually, he or his men must go out and do the work\nagain, and when pay-day comes, he fails to receive the check good work\nwould surely have made forthcoming to him.\n\nThe schoolboy, schoolgirl, has to learn this lesson, and the sooner\nthe better. The teacher never nags the careful and earnest student;\nonly the lazy and careless are worried by extra lessons, extra\nrecitals, impositions, and the like.\n\nAll through life carelessness and laziness bring worry, and he is\na wise person who, as early as he discovers these vices in himself,\nseeks to correct or, better still, eliminate them.\n\nAnother form of worry is that wherein the worrier is sure that no\none is to be relied upon to do his duty. Dickens, in his immortal\n_Pickwick Papers_, gives a forceful example of this type. Mr. Magnus\nhas just introduced himself to Pickwick, and they find they are both\ngoing to Norwich on the same stage.\n\n    'Now, gen'lm'n,' said the hostler, 'Coach is ready, if you\n    please.'\n\n    'Is all my luggage in?' inquired Magnus.\n\n    'All right, Sir.'\n\n    'Is the red bag in?'\n\n    'All right, Sir.'\n\n    'And the striped bag?'\n\n    'Fore boot, Sir.'\n\n    'And the brown-paper parcel?'\n\n    'Under the seat, Sir.'\n\n    'And the leathern hat-box?'\n\n    'They're all in, Sir.'\n\n    'Now will you get up?' said Mr. Pickwick.\n\n    'Excuse me,' replied Magnus, standing on the wheel. 'Excuse\n    me, Mr. Pickwick, I cannot consent to get up in this state of\n    uncertainty. I am quite satisfied from that man's manner, that\n    that leather hat-box is not in.'\n\n    The solemn protestations of the hostler being unavailing, the\n    leather hat-box was obliged to be raked up from the lowest\n    depth of the boot, to satisfy him that it had been safely\n    packed; and after he had been assured on this head, he felt a\n    solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was mislaid, and\n    next, that the striped bag had been stolen, and then that the\n    brown-paper parcel had become untied. At length when he had\n    received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each\n    and every one of these suspicions, he consented to climb up\n    to the roof of the coach, observing that now he had taken\n    everything off his mind he felt quite comfortable and happy.\n\nBut this was only a temporary feeling, for as they journeyed along,\nevery break in the conversation was filled up by Mr. Magnus's \"loudly\nexpressed anxiety respecting the safety and well-being of the two\nbags, the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel.\"\n\nOf course, this is an exaggerated picture, yet it properly suggests\nand illustrates this particular, senseless form of worry, with which\nwe are all more or less familiar. In business, such a worrier is a\nconstant source of irritation to all with whom he comes in contact,\neither as inferior or superior. To his inferiors, his worrying is\na bedeviling influence that irritates and helps produce the very\nincapacity for attention to detail that is required; and to superiors,\nit is a sure sign of incompetency. Experience demonstrates that such\nan one is incapable of properly directing any great enterprise. Men\nmust be trusted if you would bring out their capacities. Their work\nshould be specifically laid out before them; that is, that which is\nrequired of them; not, necessarily, in minute detail, but the general\nresults that are to be achieved. Then give them their freedom to work\nthe problems out in their own way. Give them responsibility, trust\nthem, and then leave them alone. _Quit your worrying_ about them. Give\nthem a fair chance, expect, demand results, and if they fail, fire\nthem and get those who are more competent. Mistrust and worry in the\nemployer lead to uncertainty and worry in the employee and these soon\nspell out failure.\n\nIn subsequent chapters, various worries are discussed, with their\ncauses and cures. One thing I cannot too strongly and too often\nemphasize, and that is, that the more one studies the worries referred\nto, he is compelled to see the great truth of the proverb, \"More of\nour worries come from within than from without.\" In other words, we\nmake more of our worries, by worrying, than are made for us by the\ncares of life. This fact in itself should lead us to be suspicious of\nevery worry that besets us.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nHEALTH WORRIES\n\n\nThere is an army, whose numbers are legion, who worry about their\nhealth and that of the members of their family. What with the doctors\nscaring the life out of them with the germ theory, seeking to obtain\nlegislation to vaccinate them, examine their children nude in school,\ntake out their tonsils, appendices, and other internal organs, inject\nserums into them for this, that, and the other, and requiring them to\nobserve a score and one maxims which they do not understand, there\nis no wonder they are worried. Then when one considers the army of\nphysicians who feel it to be their duty to write of sickness for the\nbenefit of the people, who give detailed symptoms of every disease\nknown; and of the larger army of quacks who deliberately live and\nfatten themselves upon the worries they can create in the minds of\nthe ignorant, the vicious and the diseased; of the patent-medicine\nmanufacturers, who spend millions of dollars annually in scaring\npeople into the use of their nostrums--none of which are worth the\ncost of the paper with which they are wrapped up--is there any wonder\nthat people, who are not trained to think, should be worried. Worries\nmeet them on every hand, at every corner. Do they feel an ache or\na pain? According to such a doctor, or such a patent-medicine\nadvertisement, that is a dangerous symptom which must be checked at\nonce or the most fearful results will ensue.\n\nThen there are the naturopaths, physicultopaths, gymnastopaths,\nhygienists, raw food advocates, and a thousand and one other\nnotionists, who give advice as to what, when, and how you shall\neat. Horace Fletcher insists that food be chewed until it is liquid;\nanother authority says, \"Bosh!\" to this and asks you to look at the\ndog who bolts his meat and is still healthy, vigorous and strong. The\nraw food advocate assures you that the only good food is uncooked, and\nthat you take out this, that, and the other by cooking, all of which\nare essential to the welfare of the body. Between these _natural\nauthorities_ and the _medical authorities_, there is a great deal of\nwarfare going on all the time, and the layman knows not wherein true\nsafety lies. Is it any wonder that he is worried.\n\nMany members of the medical profession and the drug-stores have\nthemselves to thank for this state of perpetual worriment and mental\nunrest. They inculcated, nurtured, and fostered a colossal ignorance\nin regard to the needs of the body, and a tremendous dread and blind\nfear of everything that seems the slightest degree removed from the\neveryday normal. They have persistently taught those who rely upon\nthem that the only safe and wise procedure is to rush immediately to\na physician upon the first sign of anything even slightly out of the\nordinary. Then, with wise looks, mysterious words, strange symbols,\nand loathsome decoctions, they have sent their victims home to imagine\nthat some marvelous wonder work will follow the swallowing of their\nabominable mixtures instead of frankly and honestly telling their\nconsultants that their fever was caused by overeating, by too late\nhours, by dancing in an ill-ventilated room, by too great application\nto business, by too many cocktails, or too much tobacco smoking.\n\nThe results are many and disastrous. People become confirmed\n\"worriers\" about their health. On the slightest suspicion of an\nache or a pain, they rush to the doctor or the drug-store for a\nprescription, a dose, a powder, a potion, or a pill. The telephone is\nkept in constant operation about trivialities, and every month a bill\nof greater or lesser extent has to be paid.\n\nWhile I do not wish to deprecate the calling in of a physician in any\nserious case, by those who deem it advisable, I do condemn as absurd,\nunnecessary, and foolish in the highest degree, this perpetual worry\nabout trivial symptoms of health. Every truthful physician will\nfrankly tell you--if you ask him--that worrying is often the worst\npart of the trouble; in other words, that if you never did a thing\nin these cases that distress you, but would quit your worrying, the\ndiscomfort would generally disappear of its own accord.\n\nOne result of this kind of worry is that it genders a nervousness\nthat unnecessarily calls up to the mind pictures of a large variety\nof possible dangers. Who has not met with this nervous species of\nworrier?\n\nThe train enters a tunnel: \"What an awful place for a wreck!\" Or it is\nclimbing a mountain grade with a deep precipice on one side: \"My, if\nwe were to swing off this grade!\" I have heard scores of people, who,\non riding up the Great Cable Incline of the Mount Lowe Railway, have\nexclaimed: \"What would become of us if this cable were to break?\" and\nthey were apparently people of reason and intelligence. The fact is,\nthe cable is so strong and heavy that with two cars crowded to the\nutmost, their united weight is insufficient to stretch the cable\ntight, let alone putting any strain upon it sufficient to break it.\nAnd most nervous worries are as baseless as this.\n\n\"Yet,\" says some apologist for worries, \"accidents do happen. Look\nat the _Eastland_ in Chicago, and the loss of the _Titanic_. Railways\nhave wrecks, collisions, and accidents. Horses do run away. Dogs do\nbite. People do become sick!\"\n\nGranted without debate or discussion. But if everybody on board the\nwrecked vessels had worried for six months beforehand, would their\nworries have prevented the wrecks? Mind you, I say worry, not proper\nprecaution. The shipping authorities, all railway officials and\nemployees, etc., should be as alert as possible to guard against all\naccidents. But this can be done without one moment's worry on the part\nof a solitary human being, and care is as different from worry as gold\nis from dross, coal from ashes. By all means, take due precautions;\nstudy to avoid the possibility of accidents, but do not give worry a\nplace in your mind for a moment.\n\nA twin brother to this health-worrier is the nervous type, who is\nsure that every dog loose on the streets is going to bite; every horse\ndriven behind is surely going to run away; every chauffeur is\neither reckless, drunk, or sure to run into a telegraph pole, have\na collision with another car, overturn his car at the corner, or run\ndown the crossing pedestrian; every loitering person is a tramp, who\nis a burglar in disguise; every stranger is an enemy, or at least must\nbe regarded with suspicion. Such worriers always seem to prefer to\nlook on the dark side of the unknown rather than on the bright side.\n\"Think no evil!\" is good philosophy to apply to everything, as well as\ngenuine religion--when put into practice. The world is in the control\nof the Powers of Good, and these seek our good, not our disaster. Have\nfaith in the goodness of the powers that be, and work and live to help\nmake your faith true. The man who sees evil where none exists, will do\nmore to call it into existence than he imagines, and equally true, or\neven more so, is the converse, that he who sees good where none seems\nto exist, will call it forth, bring it to the surface.\n\nThe teacher, who imagines that all children are mean and are merely\nwaiting for a chance to exercise that meanness, will soon justify his\nsuspicions and the children will become what he imagines them to be.\nYet such a teacher often little realizes that it has been his own\nwicked fears and worries that helped--to put it mildly--the evil\nassert itself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE WORRIES OF PARENTS\n\n\nA worrying parent is at once an exasperating and a pathetic figure.\nShe--for it is generally the mother--is so undeniably influenced by\nher love that one can sympathize with her anxiety, yet the confidant\nof her child, or the unconcerned observer is exasperated as he clearly\nsees the evil she is creating by her foolish, unnecessary worries.\n\nThe worries of parents are protean, as are all other worries, and\nthose herein named must be taken merely as suggestions as to scores of\nothers that might be catalogued and described in detail.\n\nMany mothers worry foolishly because their children do not obey, are\nnot always thoughtful and considerate, and act with wisdom, forgetful\nthat life is the school for learning. If any worrying is to be done,\nlet the parent worry over her own folly in not learning how to teach,\nor train, her child. Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a\nlittle, there a little, is the natural procedure with children. It\nis unreasonable to expect \"old heads upon young shoulders.\" Worry,\ntherefore, that children have not learned before they are taught is\nas senseless as it is demoralizing. Get down to something practical. I\nknow a mother of a large family of boys and girls. They are as diverse\nin character and disposition as one might ever find. She is one of the\nwise, sensible, practical mothers, who acts instead of worrying. For\ninstance, she believes thoroughly in allowing the children to choose\ntheir own clothing. It develops judgment, taste, practicability. One\nof the girls was vain, and always wanted to purchase shoes too small\nfor her, in order that she might have \"pretty feet.\" Each time she\nbrought home small shoes, her mother sent her back with admonitions to\nsecure a larger pair. After this had continued for several times, she\ndecided upon another plan. When the \"too small\" shoes were brought\nhome, she compelled the girl to wear them, though they pinched and\nhurt, until they were worn out, and, as she said in telling me the\nstory, \"that ended that.\"\n\nOne of her sons was required to get up every morning and light the\nfire. Very often he was lazy and late so that the fire was not lighted\nwhen mother was ready to prepare breakfast. One night he brought home\na companion to spend a day or two. The lads frolicked together so that\nthey overslept. When mother got up in the morning, there was no fire.\nShe immediately walked to the foot of the stairs and yelled, \"Fire!\nFire! Fire!\" at the top of her voice. In a few moments, both lads,\ntousled, half-dressed, and well-scared, rushed downstairs, exclaiming:\n\"Where's the fire? Where's the fire?\" \"I want it in the stove,\" was\nthe mother's answer--and \"that was the end of that.\"\n\nThe oldest girl became insistent that she be allowed to sit up nights\nafter the others had gone to bed. She would study for awhile and then\nput her head on her arms and go to sleep. One night her mother waited\nuntil she was asleep, went off to bed, and left her. At three o'clock\nin the morning she came downstairs, lighted lamp in hand, and alarm\nclock set to go off. As soon as the alarm-bell began to ring, the\ngirl awoke, startled to see her mother standing there with the lighted\nlamp, herself cold and stiff with the discomfort of her position. \"And\nthat was the end of that,\" said the mother.\n\nHere was common-sense, practical, hard-headed training instead of\nworry. Bend your sense, your intellect, your time, your energy, to\nseeking how to train your children, instead of doing the senseless,\nfoolish, inane, and utterly useless thing of worrying about them.\n\nImagine being the child of an anxious parent, who sees sickness in\nevery unusual move or mood of her boy or girl. A little clearing of\nthe throat--\"I'm sure he's going to have croup or diphtheria.\" The\ngirl unconsciously puts her hand to her brow--\"What's the matter with\nyour head, dearie; got a headache?\" A lad feels a trifle uncomfortable\nin his clean shirt and wiggles about--\"I'm sure Tom's coming down with\nfever, he's so restless and he looks so flushed!\"\n\nGod forbid that I should ever appear to caricature the wise care of a\ndevoted mother. That is not what I aim to do. I seek, with intenseness\nof purpose, to show the folly, the absurdity of the anxieties, the\nworries, the unnecessary and unreasonable cares of many mothers. For\nthe moment Fear takes possession of them, some kind of nagging is sure\nto begin for the child. \"Oh, Tom, you mustn't do this,\" or, \"Maggie,\nmy darling, you must be careful of that,\" and the child is not only\nnagged, but is thus _placed under bondage to the mother's unnecessary\nalarm_. No young life can suffer this bondage without injury. It\ndestroys freedom and spontaneity, takes away that dash and vigor, that\nvim and daring that essentially belong to youth, and should be the\nunhampered heritage of every child. I'd far rather have a boy and\ngirl of mine get sick once in a while--though that is by no means\nnecessary--than have them subjected to the constant fear that\nthey might be sick. And when boys and girls wake up to the full\nconsciousness that their parents' worries are foolish, unnecessary,\nand self-created, the mental and moral influence upon them is far more\npernicious than many even of our wisest observers have perceived.\n\nThere never was a boy or girl who was worried over, who was not\nannoyed, fretted, injured, and cursed by it, instead of being\nbenefited. The benefit received from the love of the parent was in\nspite of the worry, and not because of it. Worry is a hindrance, a\ndeterrent, a restraint; it is always putting a curbing hand upon the\nnatural exuberance and enthusiasm of youth. It says, \"Don't, don't,\"\nwith such fierce persistence, that it kills initiative, destroys\nendeavor, murders naturalness, and drives its victims to deception,\nfraud, and secrecy to gain what they feel to be natural, reasonable\nand desirable ends.\n\nI verily believe that the parent who forever is saying \"Don't\" to\nher children, is as dangerous as a submarine and as cruel as an\nasphyxiating bomb. Life is for _expression_, not _repression_.\nRepression is always a proof that a proper avenue for expression has\nnot yet been found. Quit your \"don't-ing,\" and teach your child to\n\"do\" right. Children absolutely are taught to dread, then dislike, and\nfinally to hate their parents when they are refused the opportunity of\n\"doing\"--of expressing themselves.\n\nRather seek to find ways in which they may be active. Give them\nopportunities for pleasure, for employment, for occupation. And\nremember this, there is as much distance and difference between\n\"tolerating,\" \"allowing,\" \"permitting\" your children to do things, and\n\"encouraging,\" \"fostering\" in them the desire to do them, as there is\ndistance between the poles. Don't be a dampener to your children, a\ndiscourager, a \"don'ter,\" a sign the moment you appear that they must\n\"quit\" something, that they must repress their enthusiasm, their fun,\ntheir exuberant frolicsomeness, but let them feel your sympathy with\nthem, your comradeship, your good cheer, that \"Father, Mother, is\na jolly good fellow,\" and my life for it, you will doubtless save\nyourself and them much worry in after years.\n\nHans Christian Andersen's story of _The Ugly Duckling_ is one of the\nbest illustrations of the uselessness and needlessness of much of the\nworry of parents with which I am familiar. How the poor mother duck\nworried because one of her brood was so large and ugly. At first she\nwas willing to accept it, but when everybody else jeered at it, pushed\nit aside, bit at it, pecked it on the head, and generally abused it,\nand the turkey-cock bore down upon it like a ship in full sail, and\ngobbled at it, and its brothers and sisters hunted it, grew more and\nmore angry with it, and wished the cat would get it and swallow it up,\nshe herself wished it far and far away. And as the worries grew around\nthe poor duckling, it ran away. It didn't know enough to have faith\nin itself and its own future. The result was the worries of others\naffected it to the extent of urging it to flee. For the time being\nthis enlarged its worries, until at length, falling in with a band of\nswans, it felt a strange thrill of fellowship with them in spite of\ntheir grand and beautiful appearance, and, soaring into the air after\nthem, it alighted into the water, and seeing its own reflection, was\nfilled with amazement and wonder to find itself no longer an ugly\nduckling but--a swan.\n\nMany a mother, father, family generally, have worried over their ugly\nduckling until they have driven him, her, out into the world, only to\nfind out later that their duckling was a swan. And while it was good\nfor the swan to find out its own nature, the points I wish to make\nare that there was no need for all the worry--it was the sign of\nignorance, of a want of perception--and further, the swan would have\ndeveloped in its home nest just as surely as it did out in the world,\nand would have been saved all the pain and distress its cruel family\nvisited upon it.\n\nThere is still another story, which may as well be introduced here, as\nit applies to the unnecessary worry of parents about their young. In\nthis case, it was a hen that sat on a nest of eggs. When the chickens\nwere hatched, they all pleased the mother hen but one, and he rushed\nto the nearest pond, and, in spite of her fret, fuss, fume, and worry,\ninsisted upon plunging in. In vain the hen screamed out that he\nwould drown, her unnatural child was resolved to venture, and to the\namazement of all, he floated perfectly, for he was a duck instead of a\nchicken, and his egg was placed under the old hen by mistake.\n\nMother, father, don't worry about your child. It may be he is a swan;\nhe may be a duck, instead of the creature you anticipated. Control\nyour fretfulness and your worry for it cannot possibly change things.\nWait and watch developments and a few days may reveal enough to you\nto show you how totally unnecessary all your worries would have been.\nTeach yourself to know that worry is evil thought directed either\nupon our own bodies or minds, or those of others. Note, I say _evil_\nthought. It is not good thought. Good thought so directed would be\nhelpful, useful, beneficial. This is injurious, harmful, baneful. Evil\nthought, worry, directs to the person, or to that part of the body\nconsidered, an injurious and baneful influence that produces pain,\ninharmony, unhappiness. It is as if one were to divert a stream of\ncorroding acid upon a sensitive wound, and do it because we wished to\nheal the wound. Worry never once healed a wound, or cured an ill. It\nalways aggravates, irritates, and, furthermore, helps superinduce the\nevil the worrier is afraid of. The fact that you worry about these\nthings to which I have referred, that you yield your thoughts to them,\nand, in your worry, give undue contemplation to them, induces the\nconditions you wish to avoid or avert. Hence, if you wish your child\nto be well and strong, brave and courageous, it is the height of\ncruelty for you to worry over his health, his play, or his exercise.\nBetter by far leave him alone than bring upon him the evils you dread.\nWho has not observed, again and again, the evil that has come from\nworrying mothers who were constantly cautioning or forbidding their\nchildren to do that which every natural and normal child longs to\ndo? Quit your worrying. Leave your child alone. Better by far let\nhim break a rib, or bruise his nose, than all the time to live in the\nbondage of your fears.\n\nElsewhere I have referred to the fact that we often bring upon our\nloved ones the perils we fear. There is a close connection between\nour mental states and the objects with which we are surrounded.\nOr, mayhap, it would be more correct to say that it is our mental\ncondition that shapes the actions of those around us in relation to\nthe things by which they are surrounded. Let me illustrate with an\nincident which happened in my own observation. A small boy and girl\nhad a nervous, ever worrying mother. She was assured that her boy\nwas bound to come to physical ill, for he was so courageous, so\nadventuresome, so daring. To her he was the duck instead of the\nchicken she thought she was hatching out. One day he climbed to the\nroof of the barn. His sister followed him. The two were slowly, and\nin perfect security, \"inching\" along on the comb of the roof, when the\nmother happened to catch sight of them. With a scream of half terror\nand half anger, she shouted to them to come down _at once!_ Up to\nthat moment, I had watched both children with comfort, pleasure, and\nassurance of their perfect safety. Their manifest delight in their\nelevated position, the pride of the girl in her pet brother's courage,\nand his scarcely concealed surprise and pleasure that she should dare\nto follow him, were interesting in the extreme. But the moment that\nfoolish mother's scream rent the air, everything changed instanter.\nBoth children became nervous, the boy started down the roof, where he\ncould drop upon a lower roof to safety. His little sister, however,\nstarted down too soon. Her mother's fears unnerved her and she slid,\nand falling some twenty-five feet or so, broke her arm.\n\nThen--and here was the cruel fatuity of the whole proceeding--the\nmother began to wail and exclaim to the effect that it was just what\nshe expected. May I be pardoned for calling her a worrying fool. She\ncould not see that it was her very expectation, and giving voice to\nit, in her hourly worryings and in that command that they come down,\nthat caused the accident. She, herself, alone was to blame; her\nunnecessary worry was the cause of her daughter's broken arm.\n\nChrist's constant incitement to his disciples was \"Be not afraid!\"\nHe was fully aware of the fact that Job declared: \"The thing which I\ngreatly feared is come upon me.\"\n\nHence, worrying mother, curb your worry, kill it, drive it out, for\n_your child's sake_. You claim it is for your child's good that\nyou worry. You are wrong. It is because you are too thoughtless,\nfaithless, and trustless that you worry, and, if you will pardon me,\n_too selfish_. If, instead of giving vent to that fear, worry,\ndread, you exercised your reason and faith a little more, and then\nself-denial, and refused to give vocal expression to your worry, you\ncould then claim unselfishness in the interest of your child. But to\nput your fears and worries, your dreads and anxieties, around a young\nchild, destroying his exuberance and joy, surrounding him with the\nmental and spiritual fogs that beset your own life is neither wise,\nkind, nor unselfish.\n\nAnother serious worry that besets many parents is that pertaining\nto the courtship or engagement of their children. Here again let me\ncaution my readers not to construe my admonitions into indifference\nto this important epoch in their child's life. I would have them\nlovingly, wisely, sagely advise. But there is a vast difference\nbetween this, and the uneasy, fretful, nagging worries that beset so\nmany parents and which often lead to serious friction. Remember that\nit is your child, not you, who has to be suited with a life partner.\nThe girl who may call forth his warmest affection may be the last\nperson in the world you would have chosen, yet you are not the one to\nbe concerned.\n\nIn the January, 1916, _Ladies' Home Journal_ there is an excellent\neditorial bearing upon this subject, as follows:\n\n    A mother got to worrying about the girl to whom her son had\n    become engaged. She was a nice girl, but the mother felt\n    that perhaps she was not of a type to stimulate the son\n    sufficiently in his career. The mother wisely said nothing,\n    however, until two important facts dawned upon her:\n\n    First, that possibly her boy was of the order which did\n    not need stimulation. As she reflected upon his nature,\n    his temperament, she arrived at the conclusion that what he\n    required in a life partner might be someone who would prove a\n    poultice rather than a mustard plaster or a fly blister.\n\n    This was her first discovery.\n\n    The second was not precisely like unto it, but was even more\n    important--that the son, and not the mother, was marrying the\n    girl. The question as to whether or not the girl would suit\n    the mother as a permanent companion was a minor consideration\n    about which she need not vex her soul. The point he had\n    settled for himself was that here, by God's grace, was the\n    one maid for him; and since that had been determined the\n    wise course was for the mother not to waste time and energy\n    bemusing (worrying) herself over the situation, especially as\n    the girl offered no fundamental objections.\n\n    Thus the mother, of herself, learned a lesson that many\n    another mother might profitably learn.\n\nHow wonderfully in his _Saul_ does Robert Browning set forth the\nopposite course to that of the worrier. Here, the active principle\nof love and trust are called upon so that it uplifts and blesses its\nobject. David is represented as filled with a great love for Saul,\nwhich would bring happiness to him. He strives in every way to make\nSaul happy, yet the king remains sad, depressed, and unhappy. At\nlast David's heart and his reason grasp the one great fact of God's\ntranscending love, and the poem ends with a burst of rapture. His\ndiscovery is that, if his heart is so full of love to Saul, that in\nhis yearning for his good, he would give him everything, what must\nGod's love for him be? Of his own love he cries:\n\n  Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,\n  I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and\n  this;\n\n  I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence,\n  At this moment,--had love but the warrant love's heart to\n  dispense.\n\nThen, when God's magnificent love bursts upon him he sings in joy:\n\n  --What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? When doors great and small\n\n  Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appall?\n\nHow utterly absurd, on the face of it, is such a supposition. God\nhaving given so much will surely continue to give. His love so far\nproven so great, it _will never cease_.\n\nO! doubting heart of man, of woman, of father, of mother, grieving\nover the mental and spiritual lapses of a loved one, grasp this\nglorious fact--God's love far transcends thine own. What thou wouldst\ndo for thy loved one is a minute fraction of what He can do, will do,\n_is doing_. Rest in His love. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee;\nand in His hands all whom thou lovest are safe.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nMARITAL WORRIES\n\n\nI now approach a difficult part of my subject, yet I do it without\ntrepidation, fear, or worry as to results. There are, to my mind, a\nfew fundamental principles to be considered and observed, and each\nmarried couple must learn to fight the battle out for themselves.\n\nUndoubtedly, to most married people, the ideal relationship is where\neach is so perfectly in accord with the other--they think alike,\nagree, are as one mentally--that there are no irritations, no\ndifferences of opinion, no serious questions to discuss.\n\nOthers have a different ideal. They do not object to differences,\nserious, even, and wide. They are so thorough believers in the\nsanctity of the individuality of each person--that every individual\nmust live his own life, and thus learn his own lessons, that what they\nask is a love large enough, big enough, sympathetic enough, to embrace\nall differences, and in confidence that the \"working out\" process will\nbe as sure for one as the other, to rest, content and serene in each\nother's love in spite of the things that otherwise would divide them.\n\nThis mental attitude, however, requires a large faith in God, a\nwonderful belief in the good that is in each person, and a forbearing\nwisdom that few possess. Nevertheless, it is well worth striving\nfor, and its possession is more desirable than many riches. And how\ndifferent the outlook upon life from that of the marital worrier.\nWhen a couple begin to live together, they have within themselves\nthe possibilities of heaven or of hell. The balance between the two,\nhowever, is very slight. There is only a foot, or less, in difference,\nbetween the West and the East on the Transcontinental Divide. I have\nstood with one foot in a rivulet the waters of which reached the\nPacific, and the other in one which reached the Atlantic. The marital\ndivide is even finer than that. It is all in the habit of mind. If one\ndetermines that he, she, will guide, boss, direct, control the other,\none of two or three things is sure to occur.\n\nI. The one mind _will_ control the other, and an individual will live\nsome one else's life instead of its own. This is the popular American\nnotion of the life of the English wife. She has been trained during\nthe centuries to recognize her husband as lord and master, and she\nunquestionably and unhesitatingly obeys his every dictate. Without at\nall regarding this popular conception as an accurate one, nationally,\nit will serve the purpose of illustration.\n\nII. The second alternative is one of sullen submission. If one hates\nto \"row,\" to be \"nagged,\" he, she, submits, but with a bad grace,\nconsumed constantly with an inward rebellion, which destroys love,\nleads to cowardly subterfuges, deceptions, and separations.\n\nIII. The third outcome is open rebellion, and the results of this are\ntoo well known to need elucidation--for whatever they may be, they\nare disastrous to the peace, happiness, and content of the family\nrelationship.\n\nYet to show how hard it is to classify actual cases in any formal way,\nlet me here introduce what I wrote long ago about a couple whom I\nhave visited many times. It is a husband and wife who are both\ngeniuses--far above the ordinary in several lines. They have\nmoney--made by their own work--the wife's as well as the husband's,\nfor she is an architect and builder of fine homes. While they have\ngreat affection one for another, there is a constant undertone of\nworry in their lives. Each is too critical of the other. They worry\nabout trifles. Each is losing daily the sweetness of sympathetic and\njoyous comradeship because they do not see eye to eye in all things.\nWhere a mutual criticism of one's work is agreed upon, and is mutually\nacceptable and unirritating, there is no objection to it. Rather\nshould it be a source of congratulation that each is so desirous of\nimproving that criticism is welcomed. But, in many cases, it is a\npositive and injurious irritant. One meets with criticism, neither\nkind nor gentle, out in the world. In the home, both man and woman\nneed tenderness, sympathy, comradeship--and if there be weaknesses\nor failures that are openly or frankly confessed, there should be\nthe added grace and virtue of compassion without any air of pitying\ncondescension or superiority. By all means help each other to mend, to\nimprove, to reach after higher, noble things, but don't do it by\nthe way of personal criticism, advice, remonstrance, fault-finding,\nworrying. If you do, you'll do far more harm than good in ninety-nine\ncases out of every hundred. Every human being instinctively, in such\nposition, consciously or unconsciously, places himself in the attitude\nof saying: \"I am what I am! Now recognize that, and leave me alone!\nMy life is mine to learn its lessons in my own way, just the same as\nyours is to learn your lessons in your way.\" This worrying about, and\nof each other has proven destructive of much domestic happiness, and\nhas wrecked many a marital barque, that started out with sails set,\nfair wind, and excellent prospects.\n\nDon't worry about each other--_help_ each other by the loving sympathy\nthat soothes and comforts. Example is worth a million times more than\nprecept and criticism, no matter how lovingly and wisely applied,\nand few men and women are wise enough to criticise and advise\n_perpetually_, without giving the recipient the feeling that he is\nbeing \"nagged.\"\n\nGranted that, from the critic's standpoint, every word said may be\ntrue, wise, and just. This does not, by any means, make it wise to\nsay it. The mental and spiritual condition of the recipient _must_ be\nconsidered as of far more importance than the condition of the giver\nof the wise exhortations. The latter is all right, he doesn't need\nsuch admonitions; the other does. The important question, therefore,\nshould be: \"Is he ready to receive them?\" If not, if the time is\nunpropitious, the mental condition inauspicious, better do, say,\nnothing, than make matters worse. But, unfortunately, it generally\nhappens that at such times the critic is far more concerned at\nunbosoming himself of his just and wise admonitions than he is as to\nwhether the time is ripe, the conditions the best possible, for the\nword to be spoken. The sacred writer has something very wise and\nilluminating to say upon this subject. Solomon says: \"A word spoken in\ndue season, how good is it!\" Note, however, that it must be spoken \"in\ndue season,\" to be good. The same word spoken out of season may be,\nand often is, exceedingly bad. Again he says: \"A word fitly spoken\nis like apples of gold in pictures of silver.\" But it must be _fitly_\nspoken to be worthy to rank with apples of gold.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE WORRY OF THE SQUIRREL CAGE\n\n\nReference has already been made to _The Squirrel Cage_, by Dorothy\nCanfield. Better than any book I have read for a long time, it reveals\nthe causes of much of the worry that curses our modern so-called\ncivilized life. These causes are complex and various. They include\n_vanity, undue attention to what our neighbors think of us, a false\nappreciation of the values of things_, and they may all be summed\nup into what I propose to call--with due acknowledgement to Mrs.\nCanfield--_the Worry of the Squirrel Cage_.\n\nI will let the author express her own meaning of this latter term. If\nthe story leading up seems to be long please seek to read it in the\nlight of this expression:[A]\n\n[Footnote A: Reprinted from \"The Squirrel-Cage\" by Dorothy Canfield\n($1.35 net); published by Henry Holt and Company, New York City.]\n\n    When Mr. and Mrs. Emery, directly after their wedding in a\n    small Central New York village, had gone West to Ohio,\n    they had spent their tiny capital in building a small\n    story-and-a-half cottage, ornamented with the jig-saw work and\n    fancy turning popular in 1872, and this had been the nucleus\n    of their present rambling, picturesque, many-roomed home.\n    Every step in the long series of changes which had led from\n    its first state to its last had a profound and gratifying\n    significance for the Emerys and its final condition,\n    prosperous, modern, sophisticated, with the right kind of\n    wood work in every room that showed, with the latest, most\n    unobtrusively artistic effects in decoration, represented\n    their culminating well-earned position in the inner circle of\n    the best society of Endbury.\n\n    Moreover, they felt that just as the house had been attained\n    with effort, self-denial, and careful calculations, yet still\n    without incurring debt, so their social position had been\n    secured by unremitting diligence and care, but with no loss of\n    self-respect or even of dignity. They were honestly proud of\n    both their house and of their list of acquaintances and saw\n    no reason to regard them as less worthy achievements of an\n    industrious life than their four creditable grown-up children\n    or Judge Emery's honorable reputation at the bar.\n\n    The two older children, George and Marietta, could remember\n    those early struggling days with as fresh an emotion as\n    that of their parents. Indeed, Marietta, now a competent,\n    sharp-eyed matron of thirty-two, could not see the most\n    innocuous colored lithograph without an uncontrollable wave\n    of bitterness, so present to her mind was the period when they\n    painfully groped their way out of chromos.\n\n    The particular Mrs. Hollister who, at the time the Emerys\n    began to pierce the upper crust, was the leader of Endbury\n    society, had discarded chromos as much as five years before.\n    Mrs. Emery and Marietta, newly admitted to the honor of her\n    acquaintance, wondered to themselves at the cold monotony of\n    her black and white engravings. The artlessness of this wonder\n    struck shame to their hearts when they chanced to learn that\n    the lady had repaid it with a worldly-wise amusement at their\n    own highly-colored waterfalls and snow-capped mountain-peaks.\n    Marietta could recall as piercingly as if it were yesterday,\n    in how crestfallen a chagrin she and her mother had gazed at\n    their parlor after this incident, their disillusioned eyes\n    open for the first time to the futility of its claim to\n    sophistication. As for the incident that had led to the\n    permanent retiring from their table of the monumental\n    salt-and-pepper 'caster' which had been one of their\n    most prized wedding presents, the Emerys refused to allow\n    themselves to remember it, so intolerably did it spell\n    humiliation.\n\nIn these quotations the reader has the key to the situation--worry to\nbecome as good as one's neighbors, if not better. _This is the worry\nof the squirrel cage_.\n\nLydia is Mrs. Emery's baby girl, her pet, her passionate delight.\nShe has been away to a fine school. She knows nothing of the ancient\nstruggles to attain position and a high place in society. Those\nstruggles were practically over before she appeared on the scene.\n\nOn the occasion of her final home-coming her mother makes great\npreparations to please her, yet the worry and the anxiety, are\nrevealed in her conversation with her older daughter:\n\n    'Oh, Marietta, how _do_ you suppose the house will seem\n    to Lydia after she has seen so much? I hope she won't be\n    disappointed. I've done so much to it this last year, perhaps\n    she won't like it. And oh, I _was_ so tired because we weren't\n    able to get the new sideboard put up in the dining-room\n    yesterday!'\n\n    'Really, Mother, you must draw the line about Lydia. She's\n    only human. I guess if the house is good enough for you and\n    father it is good enough for her.'\n\n    'That's just it, Marietta--that's just what came over me!\n    _Is_ what's good enough for us good enough for Lydia? Won't\n    anything, even the best, in Endbury be a come-down for her?'\n\nThe attainments of Mrs. Emery both as to wealth and social position,\nhowever, were not reached by her daughter Marietta and her husband,\nbut in the determination to make it appear as if they were, Marietta\nthus exposes her own life of worry in a talk with her father:\n\n    'Keeping up a two-maid and a man establishment on a one-maid\n    income, and mostly not being able to hire the one maid. There\n    aren't _any_ girls to be had lately. It means that I have to\n    be the other maid and the man all of the time, and all three,\n    part of the time.' She was starting down the step, but paused\n    as though she could not resist the relief that came from\n    expression. 'And the cost of living--the necessities are bad\n    enough, but the other things--the things you have to have not\n    to be out of everything! I lie awake nights. I think of it\n    in church. I can't think of anything else but the way\n    the expenses mount up. Everybody getting so reckless and\n    extravagant and I _won't_ go in debt! I'll come to it, though.\n    Everybody else does. We're the only people that haven't\n    oriental rugs now. Why, the Gilberts--and everybody knows how\n    much they still owe Dr. Melton for Ellen's appendicitis,\n    and their grocer told Ralph they owe him several hundred\n    dollars--well, they have just got an oriental rug that they\n    paid a hundred and sixty dollars for. Mrs. Gilbert said they\n    'just _had_ to have it, and you can always have what you have\n    to have.' It makes me sick! Our parlor looks so common! And\n    the last dinner party we gave cost--'\n\nAnother phase of the _squirrel cage worry_ is expressed in this terse\nparagraph:\n\n    'Father keeps talking about getting one of those\n    player-pianos, but Mother says they are so new you can't tell\n    what they are going to be. She says they may get to be too\n    common.'\n\nBye and bye it comes Lydia's turn to decide what place she and her new\nhusband are to take in Endbury society, and here is what one frank,\nsensible man says about it:\n\n    'It may be all right for Marietta Mortimer to kill herself\n    body and soul by inches to keep what bores her to death to\n    have--a social position in Endbury's two-for-a-cent society,\n    but, for the Lord's sake, why do they make such a howling\n    and yelling just at the tree when Lydia's got the tragically\n    important question to decide as to whether that's what _she_\n    wants? It's like expecting her to do a problem in calculus in\n    the midst of an earthquake.'\n\nAnd the following chapter is a graphic presentation as to how Lydia\nmade her choice \"in perfect freedom\"--oh, the frightful sarcasm of the\nphrase--during the excitement of the wedding preparations and under\nthe pressure of expensive gifts and the ideas of over enthusiastic\n\"society\" friends.\n\nLydia now began her own \"squirrel-cage\" existence, even her husband\nurges her into extravagance in spite of her protest by saying,\n\"Nothing's too good for you. And besides, it's an asset. The mortgage\nwon't be so very large. And if we're in it, we'll just have to live up\nto it. It'll be a stimulus.\"\n\nOne of the sane characters of the book is dear, lovable, gruff Mr.\nMelton, who is Lydia's godfather, and her final awakening is largely\ndue to him. One day he finds Lydia's mother upstairs sick-a-bed, and\nthus breaks forth to his godchild:\n\n    'About your mother--I know without going upstairs that she is\n    floored with one or another manifestation of the great disease\n    of _social-ambitionitis_. But calm yourself. It's not so bad\n    as it seems when you've got the right doctor, I've practiced\n    for thirty years among Endbury ladies. They can't spring\n    anything new on me. I've taken your mother through doily fever\n    induced by the change from tablecloths to bare tops, through\n    portiere inflammation, through afternoon tea distemper,\n    through _art-nouveau_ prostration and mission furniture palsy,\n    not to speak of a horrible attack of acute insanity over the\n    necessity of having her maids wear caps. I think you can trust\n    me, whatever dodge the old malady is working on her.'\n\nAnd later in speaking of Lydia's sister he affirms:\n\n    'Your sister Marietta is not a very happy woman. She has too\n    many of your father's brains for the life she's been shunted\n    into. She might be damming up a big river with a finely\n    constructed concrete dam, and what she is giving all her\n    strength to is trying to hold back a muddy little trickle with\n    her bare hands. The achievement of her life is to give on\n    a two-thousand-a-year income the appearance of having five\n    thousand like your father. She does it; she's a remarkably\n    forceful woman, but it frets her. She ought to be in better\n    business, and she knows it, though she won't admit it.'\n\nOh, the pity of it, the woe of it, the horror of it, for it is one of\nthe curses of our present day society and is one of the causes of\nmany a man's and woman's physical and mental ruin. In the words of our\nauthor elsewhere:\n\n    They are killing themselves to get what they really don't want\n    and don't need, and are starving for things they could easily\n    have by just putting out their hands.\n\nWhere life's struggle is reduced to this kind of thing, there is\nlittle compensation, hence we are not surprised to read that:\n\n    Judge Emery was in the state in which of late the end of the\n    day's work found him--overwhelmingly fatigued. He had not an\n    ounce of superfluous energy to answer his wife's tocsin, while\n    she was almost crying with nervous exhaustion. That Lydia's\n    course ran smooth through a thousand complications was not\n    accomplished without an incalculable expenditure of nervous\n    force on her mother's part. Dr. Melton had several times of\n    late predicted that he would have his old patient back under\n    his care again. Judge Emery, remembering this prophecy, was\n    now moved by his wife's pale agitation to a heart-sickening\n    mixture or apprehension for her and of recollection of his own\n    extreme discomfort whenever she was sick.\n\nYet in spite of this intense tension, she was unable to stop--felt\nshe must go on, until finally, a breakdown intervened and she was\ncompelled to lay by.\n\nOn another page a friend tells of his great-aunt's experience:\n\n    'She told me that all through her childhood her family was\n    saving and pulling together to build a fine big house. They\n    worked along for years until, when she was a young lady, they\n    finally accomplished it; built a big three-story house that\n    was the admiration of the countryside. Then they moved in. And\n    it took the womenfolks every minute of their time, and more\n    to keep it clean and in order; it cost as much to keep it up,\n    heated, furnished, repaired, painted and everything the way a\n    fine house should be, as their entire living used to cost. The\n    fine big grounds they had laid out to go with the mansion took\n    so much time to--'\n\nFinally Lydia herself becomes awakened, startled as she sees what\neverybody is trying to make her life become and she bursts out to her\nsister:\n\n    'I'm just frightened of--everything--what everybody expects me\n    to do, and to go on doing all my life, and never have any\n    time but to just hurry faster and faster, so there'll be\n    more things to hurry about, and never talk about anything but\n    _things!_' She began to tremble and look white, and stopped\n    with a desperate effort to control herself, though she\n    burst out at the sight of Mrs. Mortimer's face of despairing\n    bewilderment. 'Oh, don't tell me you don't see at all what\n    I mean. I can't say it! But you _must_ understand. Can't we\n    somehow all stop--_now!_ And start over again! You get muslin\n    curtains and not mend your lace ones, and Mother stop fussing\n    about whom to invite to that party--that's going to cost more\n    than he can afford, Father says--it makes me _sick_ to be\n    costing him so much. And not fuss about having clothes just\n    so--and Paul have our house built little and plain, so it\n    won't be so much work to take care of it and keep it clean.\n    I would so much rather look after it myself than to have\n    him kill himself making money so I can hire maids that you\n    _can't_--you say yourself you can't--and never having any time\n    to see him. Perhaps if we did, other people might, and we'd\n    all have more time to like things that make us nicer to like.\n\nAnd when her sister tried to comfort her she continued:\n\n    'You do see what I mean! You see how dreadful it is to look\n    forward to just that--being so desperately troubled over\n    things that don't really matter--and--and perhaps having\n    children, and bringing them to the same thing--when there must\n    be so many things that do matter!'\n\nThen, to show how perfectly her sister understood, the author makes\nthat wise and perceptive woman exclaim:\n\n    'Mercy! Dr. Melton's right! She's perfectly wild with nerves!\n    We must get her married as soon as ever we can!'\n\nLydia gives a reception. Here is part of the description:\n\n    Standing as they were, tightly pressed in between a number of\n    different groups, their ears were assaulted by a disjointed\n    mass of stentorian conversation that gave a singular illusion\n    as if it all came from one inconceivably voluble source,\n    the individuality of the voices being lost in the screaming\n    enunciation which, as Mrs. Sandworth had pointed out, was a\n    prerequisite of self-expression under the circumstances.\n\n    They heard: '_For over a month and the sleeves were too see\n    you again at Mrs. Elliott's I'm pouring there from four I've\n    got to dismiss one with plum-colored bows all along five\n    dollars a week and the washing out and still impossible! I\n    was there myself all the time and they neither of thirty-five\n    cents a pound for the most ordinary ferns and red carnations\n    was all they had, and we thought it rather skimpy under the\n    brought up in one big braid and caught down with at Peterson's\n    they were pink and white with--' ... 'Oh, no, Madeleine! that\n    was at the Burlingame's_.' Mrs. Sandworth took a running jump\n    into the din and sank from her brother's sight, vociferating:\n    '_The Petersons had them of old gold, don't you remember, with\n    little_--'\n\n    The doctor, worming his way desperately through the masses of\n    femininity, and resisting all attempts to engage him in the\n    local fray, emerged at length into the darkened hall where\n    the air was, as he told himself in a frenzied flight of\n    imagination, less like a combination of a menagerie and a\n    perfume shop. Here, in a quiet corner, sat Lydia's father\n    alone. He held in one hand a large platter piled high with\n    wafer-like sandwiches, which he was consuming at a Gargantuan\n    rate, and as he ate, he smiled to himself.\n\n    'Well, Mr. Ogre,' said the doctor, sitting down beside him\n    with a gasp of relief; 'let a wave-worn mariner into your den,\n    will you?'\n\n    Provided with an auditor, Judge Emery's smile broke into an\n    open laugh. He waved the platter toward the uproar in the next\n    rooms: 'A boiler factory ain't in it with woman, lovely woman,\n    is it?' he put it to his friend.\n\n    'Gracious powers! There's nothing to laugh at in that\n    exhibition!' the doctor reproved him, with an acrimonious\n    savagery. 'I don't know which makes me sicker; to stay in\n    there and listen to them, or come out here and find you\n    thinking they're _funny_!'\n\n    They are funny!' insisted the Judge tranquilly. 'I stood by\n    the door and listened to the scraps of talk I could catch,\n    till I thought I should have a fit. I never heard anything\n    funnier on the stage.'\n\n    'Looky here, Nat,' the doctor stared up at him angrily,\n    'they're not monkeys in a zoo, to be looked at only on\n    holidays and then laughed at! They're the other half of a\n    whole that we're half of, and don't you forget it! Why in the\n    world should you think it funny for them to do this tomfool\n    trick all winter and have nervous prostration all summer to\n    pay for it? You'd lock up a _man_ as a dangerous lunatic if\n    he spent his life so. What they're like, and what they do with\n    their time and strength concerns us enough sight more than\n    what the tariff is, let me tell you.'\n\n    'I admit that what your wife is like concerns you a whole\n    lot!' The Judge laughed good-naturedly in the face of the\n    little old bachelor. 'Don't commence jumping on the American\n    woman so! I won't stand it! She's the noblest of her sex!'\n\n    'Do you know why I am bald?' said Dr. Melton, running his hand\n    over his shining dome.\n\n    'If I did, I wouldn't admit it,' the Judge put up a cautious\n    guard, 'because I foresee that whatever I say will be used as\n    evidence against me.'\n\n    'I've torn out all my hair in desperation at hearing such men\n    as you claim to admire and respect and wish to advance the\n    American woman. You don't give enough thought to her--real\n    thought--from one year's end to another to know whether you\n    think she has an immortal soul or not!'\n\nLater Lydia's husband insists that they give a dinner.\n\n    It was to be a large dinner--large, that is, for Endbury--of\n    twenty covers, and Lydia had never prepared a table for\n    so many guests. The number of objects necessary for the\n    conventional setting of a dinner table appalled her. She was\n    so tired, and her attention was so fixed on the complicated\n    processes going on uncertainly in the kitchen, that her brain\n    reeled over the vast quantity of knives and forks and plates\n    and glasses needed to convey food to twenty mouths on a festal\n    occasion. They persistently eluded her attempts to marshal\n    them into order. She discovered that she had put forks for the\n    soup--that in some inexplicable way at the plate destined for\n    an important guest there was a large kitchen spoon of iron, a\n    wild sort of whimsical humor rose in her from the ferment of\n    utter fatigue and anxiety. When Paul came in, looking very\n    grave, she told him with a wavering laugh, 'If I tried as hard\n    for ten minutes to go to Heaven as I've tried all day to have\n    this dinner right, I'd certainly have a front seat in the\n    angel choir. If anybody here to-night is not satisfied, it'll\n    be because he's harder to please than St. Peter himself.'\n\nDuring the evening:\n\n    Lydia seemed to herself to be in an endless bad dream. The\n    exhausting efforts of the day had reduced her to a sort\n    of coma of fatigue through which she felt but dully the\n    successive stabs of the ill-served unsuccessful dinner. At\n    times, the table, the guests, the room itself, wavered before\n    her, and she clutched at her chair to keep her balance. She\n    did not know that she was laughing and talking gaily and\n    eating nothing. She was only conscious of an intense longing\n    for the end of things, and darkness and quiet.\n\nWhen it was all over and her husband was compelled to recognize that\nit had been a failure, his mental attitude is thus expressed:\n\n    He had determined to preserve at all costs the appearance\n    of the indulgent, non-critical, over-patient husband that he\n    intensely felt himself to be. No force, he thought grimly,\n    shutting his jaws hard, should drag from him a word of\n    his real sentiments. Fanned by the wind of this virtuous\n    resolution, his sentiments grew hotter and hotter as he walked\n    about, locking doors and windows, and reviewing bitterly the\n    events of the evening. If he was to restrain himself from\n    saying, he would at least allow himself the privilege of\n    feeling all that was possible to a man deeply injured.\n\nAnd that night Lydia felt for the \"first time the quickening to life\nof her child. And during all that day, until then, she had forgotten\nthat she was to know motherhood.\" Can words more forcefully depict the\n_worry of the squirrel-cage_ than this--that an unnecessary dinner,\ngiven in unnecessary style, at unnecessary expense, to visitors to\nwhom it was unnecessary should have driven from her thought, and\ndoubtless seriously injured, the new life that she was so soon to give\nto the world?\n\nOh, men and women of divine descent and divine heritage, quit your\nsquirrel-cage stage of existence. Is life to be one mere whirling\naround of the cage of useless toil or pleasure, of mere imagining that\nyou are doing something? Work with an object. Know your object, that\nit is worthy the highest endeavor of a human being, and then pursue it\nwith a divine enthusiasm that no obstacle can daunt, an ardor that no\nweariness can quench. Then it is you will begin to live. There is no\nlife in _worry_. Worry is a waste of life. If you are a worrier, that\nis a proof you (in so far as you worry) do not appreciate the value of\nyour own life, for a worthy object, a divine enthusiasm, a noble ardor\nare in themselves the best possible preventives against worry. They\ndignify life above worry. Worry is undignified, petty, paltry. Where\nyou know you have something to do worth doing, you are conscious of\nthe Divine Benediction, and who can worry when the smile of God rests\nupon him? This is a truism almost to triteness, and yet how few fully\nrealize it. It is the unworthy potterers with life, the dabblers in\nlife-stuff, those who blind themselves to their high estate, those who\nare unsure of their footing who worry. The true aristocrat is never\nworried about his position; the orator convinced of the truth of his\nmessage worries not as to how it will be received; the machinist sure\nof his plans hesitates not in the construction of his machinery;\nthe architect assured of his accuracy pushes on his builders without\nhesitancy or question, fear, or alarm; the engineer knowing his engine\nand his destination has no heart quiver as he handles the lever. It is\nthe doubter, the unsure, the aimless, the dabbler, the frivolous,\nthe dilettante, the uncertain that worry. How nobly Browning set this\nforth in his Epilogue:\n\n      What had I on earth to do\n  With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?\n  Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel\n    --Being--Who?\n  One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,\n    Never doubted clouds would break,\n  Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,\n  Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,\n    Sleep to wake.\n  No, at noonday in the bustle of man's worktime\n    Greet the unseen with a cheer!\n  Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,\n  'Strive and thrive!' cry 'Speed,--fight on, fare ever\n    There as here!'\n\nAnd this is not \"mere poetry.\" Or rather it is because it is \"mere\npoetry\" that it is _real life_. Browning had nearly seventy years of\nit. He knew. Where there are those to whom \"God has whispered in the\near,\" there is no uncertainty, no worry. The musician who knows his\ninstrument, knows his music, knows his key, and knows his time to play\nnever hesitates, never falters, never worries. With tone clear, pure,\nstrong, and certain, he sends forth his melodies or harmonies into\nthe air. Cannot you, in your daily life, be a true and sure musician?\nCannot you be _certain_--absolutely, definitely certain--of your right\nto play the tune of life in the way you have it marked out before you,\nand then go ahead and play! Play, in God's name, as God's and man's\nmusic-maker.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nRELIGIOUS WORRIES AND WORRIERS\n\n\nMisunderstandings, misconceptions, and ignorance in regard to what\nreally is religion have caused countless millions to mourn--and worry;\nindeed, far more to worry than to mourn. Religion should be a joyous\nthing, the bringing of the son and daughter into close relationship\nwith the Father. Instead, for centuries, it has been a battle for\ncreeds, for mental assent to certain doctrines, rather than a growth\nin brotherhood and loving relationship, and those who could not see\neye to eye with one another deemed it to be their duty to fight and\nworry each other--even to their death.\n\nThis is not the place for any theological discussion; nor is it my\nintent to present the claims of any church or creed. Each reader must\ndo that for himself, and the less he worries over it, the better I\nthink it will be for him. I have read and reread Cardinal Newman's\nwonderful _Pro Apologia_--his statement as to why and how he entered\nthe bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, and it has thrilled me with\nits pathos and evidence of deep spiritual endeavor. Charles Warren\nStoddard's _Troubled Heart and How It Found Rest_ is another similar\nstory, though written by an entirely different type of man. Each\nof these books revealed the inner thought and life of men who were\nworried about religion, and by worry I mean anxious to the point of\nabnormality, disturbed, distressed unnecessarily. Yet I would not be\nmisunderstood. Far be it from me, in this age of gross materialism and\nworship of physical power and wealth, to decry in the least a proper\ndegree of solicitude for one's personal salvation. The religious life\nof the individual--the real, deep, personal, hidden, unseen, inner\nlife of a human soul--is a wonderfully delicate thing, to be touched\nby another only with the profoundest love and deepest wisdom. Hence I\nhave little to say about one's own inner struggles, except to affirm\nand reaffirm that wisdom, sanity, and religion itself are _all_\nagainst worrying about it. Study religion, consider it, accept it,\nfollow it, earnestly, seriously, and constantly, but do it in a\nrational manner, seeking the essentials, accepting them and then\n_resting_ in them to the full and utter exclusion of all worry.\n\nBut there is another class of religious worriers, viz., those\nwho worry themselves about _your_ salvation. Again I would not be\nmisunderstood, nor thought to decry a certain degree of solicitude\nabout the spiritual welfare of those we love, but here again the\ncaution and warning against worry more than ever holds good. Most of\nthese worriers have found comfort, joy, and peace in a certain line of\nthought, which has commended itself to them as _Truth_--the one,\nfull, complete, indivisible Truth, and it seems most natural for human\nnature to be eager that others should possess it. This is the secret\nof the zeal of the street Salvationist, whose flaming ardor is bent\non reaching those who seldom, if ever, go to church. The burden of his\ncry is that you must flee from the wrath to come--hell--by accepting\nthe vicarious atonement made by the \"blood of Jesus.\" In season and\nout of season, he urges that you \"come under the blood.\" His face is\ntense, his brow wrinkled, his eyes strained, his voice raucous, his\nwhole demeanor full of worry over the salvation of others.\n\nAnother friend is a Seventh Day Adventist, who is full of zeal for the\ndeclaration of the \"Third Angel's Message,\" for he believes that\nonly by heeding it, keeping sacred the hours from sunset on Friday\nto Saturday sunset, in accordance with his reading of the fourth\ncommandment, and also believing in the speedy second coming of Christ,\ncan one's soul's salvation be attained.\n\nThe Baptist is assured that his mode of baptism--complete\nimmersion--is the only one that satisfies the demands of heaven, and\nthe more rigorous members of the sect refuse communion with those\nwho have not obeyed, as they see the command. The members of the\n\"Christian\" Church--as the disciples of Alexander Campbell term\nthemselves--while they assent that they are tied to no creed except\nthe New Testament, demand immersion as a prerequisite to membership in\ntheir body. The Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Nazarene,\nand many others, are \"evangelical\" in their belief, as is a large\nportion of the Church of England, and its American offshoot, both of\nwhich are known as the Episcopal Church. Another portion, however, of\nthis church is known as \"ritualistic,\" and the two branches in England\nrecently became so involved in a heated discussion as to the propriety\nof certain of their bishops partaking in official deliberations with\nministers of the other, but outside, evangelistic churches, that for a\ntime it seemed as if the whole Episcopal Church would be disrupted by\nthe fierceness and anger gendered in the differences of opinion.\n\nTo my own mind, all this worry was much ado about nothing. Each man's\nbrain and conscience must guide him in matters of this kind, and the\nworry, fret, stew, evolved out of the matter, seem to me a proof that\nreal religion had little to do with it.\n\nRecently one good brother came to me with tears in his voice, if not\nin his eyes, worried seriously as to my own religious belief because I\nhad asserted in a public address that I believed the earnest prayer\nof a good Indian woman reached the ear of God as surely as did my own\nprayers, or those of any man, woman, minister, or priest living. To\nhim the only effective prayers were \"evangelical\" prayers--whatever\nthat may mean--and he was deeply distressed and fearfully worried\nbecause I could not see eye to eye with him in this matter. And a\ndear, good woman, who heard a subsequent discussion of the subject,\nwas so worried over my attitude that she felt impelled to assure me\nwhen I left that \"she would pray for me.\"\n\nI have friends who are zealous Roman Catholics, and a number of them\nare praying that I may soon enter the folds of \"Mother Church,\" and\nyet my Unitarian and Universalist friends wonder why I retain my\nmembership in any \"orthodox\" church. On the other hand, my New Thought\nfriends declare that I belong to them by the spirit of the messages I\nhave given to the world. Then, too, my Theosophist friends--and I have\nmany--present to me, with a force I do not attempt to controvert, the\ndoctrine of the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind, and urge upon\nme acceptance of the comforting and helpful doctrine, to them, of\nReincarnation.\n\nNot long prior to this writing a good earnest man buttonholed me\nand held me tight for over an hour, while he outlined his own slight\ndivergencies from the teachings of the Methodist Church, to which he\nbelongs, and his interpretation of the symbolism of Scripture, none\nof which had the slightest interest to me. In our conversation, he\nexpressed himself as quite willing--please note the condescension--to\nallow me the privilege of supposing the Catholic was honest and\nsincere in his faith and belief, _but he really could not for one\nmoment_ allow the same to the Christian Scientist, who, from his\nstandpoint, denied the atonement and the Divinity of Christ. I suppose\nif he ever picks up this booklet and reads what I am now going\nto write, he will regard me as a reprobate and lost beyond the\npossibility of salvation. Nevertheless, I wish to put on record that\nI regard his attitude as one of intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, and\nimpudence--sheer, unadulterated impertinence. Who made him the judge\nof the thoughts and acts of other men's inner lives? Who gave to him\nthe wisdom and power of discernment to know that _he_ was right and\nthese others wrong? Poor, arrogant fool. His worries were not the\nresult of genuine affection and deep human sympathy, the irrepressible\nand uncontrollable desires and longings of his heart to bring\nothers into the full light of God's love, but of his overweening\nself-confidence in his own wisdom and judgment. And I say this in no\npersonal condemnation of him, for I have now even forgotten who it\nwas, but in condemnation of the spirit in which he and all his ilk\never act.\n\nHence, my dear reader, if you are of his class, I say to you\nearnestly: Don't worry about other people's salvation. It may be they\nare nearer saved than you are. No man can' be \"worried\" into accepting\nanything, even though _you_ may deem it the only Truth. I have known\nmen whom others regarded as agnostics who had given more study to the\nquestion of personal religion than any ten of their critics. I can\nrecall three--all of whom were men of wonderful mentality and great\nearnestness of purpose. John Burroughs's first essays were written\nfor his own soul's welfare--the results of his long-continued mental\nstruggles for light upon the subject. Major J.W. Powell, the organizer\nand director for many years of the United States Geological Survey and\nBureau of American Ethnology, was brought up by a father and mother\nwhose intense longing was that their son should be a Methodist\npreacher. The growing youth wished to please his parents, but was\nalso compelled to satisfy his own conscience. The more he studied the\ncreeds and doctrines of Methodism, the less he felt he could accept\nthem, and much to the regret of his parents, he refused to enter the\nministry. Yet, in relating the story to me, he asserted that his whole\nlife had been one long agony of earnest study to find the highest\ntruth. Taking me into his library, where there were several extended\nshelves filled from end to end with the ponderous tomes of the two\ngreat government bureaus that he controlled, he said: \"Most people\nregard this as my life-work, and outwardly it is. Yet I say to you in\nall sincerity that the real, inner, secret force working through all\nthis, has been that I might satisfy my own soul on the subject of\nreligion.\" Then, picking up two small volumes, he said: \"In these two\nbooks I have recorded the results of my years of agonizing struggle.\nI don't suppose ten men have ever read them through, or, perhaps,\never will, but these are the real story of the chief work of my inner\nlife.\"\n\nI am one of the few men who have read both these books with scrupulous\ncare, and yet were it not for what my friend told me of their profound\nsignificance to him, I should scarcely have been interested enough in\ntheir contents to read them through. At the same time, I _know_ that\nthe men who, from the standpoint of their professionally religious\ncomplacency would have condemned Major Powell, never spent\none-thousandth part the time, nor felt one ten-thousandth the real\nsolicitude that he did about seeking \"the way, the truth, and the\nlife.\"\n\nAnother friend in Chicago was Dr. M.H. Lackersteen, openly denounced\nas an agnostic, and even as an infidel, by some zealous sectaries.\nYet Dr. Lackersteen had personally translated the whole of the Greek\nTestament, and several other sacred books of the Hebrews and Hindoos,\nin his intense desire to satisfy the demands of his own soul for\nthe Truth. He was the soul of honor, the very personification of\nsincerity, and as much above some of his critics--whom I well knew--in\nthese virtues, as they were above the scum of the slums.\n\nThe longer I live and study men the more I am compelled to believe\nthat religion is a personal matter between oneself and God and is more\nof the spirit than most people have yet conceived. It is well known\nto those who have read my books and heard my lectures on the Old\nFranciscan Missions of California, that I revere the memory of Padres\nJunipero Serra, Palou, Crespi, Catala, Peyri, and others of the\nfounders of these missions. I have equal veneration for the goodness\nof many Catholic priests, nuns, and laymen of to-day. Yet I am not\na Catholic, though zealous sectaries of Protestantism--even of the\nchurch to which I am supposed to belong--sometimes fiercely assail\nme for my open commendation of these men of that faith. They are\n_worried_ lest I lean too closely towards Catholicism, and ultimately\nbecome one of that fold. Others, who hear my good words in favor of\nwhat appeals to me as noble and uplifting in the lives of those of\nother faiths of which they do not approve, worry over and condemn my\n\"breadth\" of belief. Indeed, I have many friends who give themselves\nan immense lot of altogether unnecessary worry about this matter. They\nhave labelled themselves according to some denominational tag, and\naccept some form of belief that, to them, seems incontrovertible and\nsatisfactory. Many of them are praying for me, and each that I may see\nthe TRUTH from _his_ standpoint. For their prayers I am grateful. I\ncannot afford to lose the spirit of love behind and in every one of\nthem. But for the _worry_ about me in their minds, I have neither\nrespect, regard, toleration, nor sympathy. I don't want it, can do\nwithout it, and I resent its being there. To each and all of them I\nsay firmly: _Quit Your Worrying_ about my religion, or want of it.\nI am in the hands of the same loving God that you are. I have the\npromise of God's Guiding Spirit as much as you have. I have listened\nrespectfully and with an earnest and sincere desire to see and know\nthe Truth, to all you have said, and now I want to be left alone. I\nhave come to exclaim with Browning in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_:\n\n    Now, who shall arbitrate?\n    Ten men love what I hate,\n    Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;\n    Ten, who in ears and eyes\n    Match me. We all surmise,\n  They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?\n\nFor myself I have concluded that no one shall choose my religion for\nme, and all the worrying in the world shall not change my attitude.\n\nAnd it is to the worrying of my friends that they owe this state of\nmind. For this reason, I found myself one day counting up the number\nof people of different beliefs who had solemnly promised to pray for\nme. There were Methodists, Campbellites, Baptists, Roman Catholics,\nEpiscopalians, Seventh Day Adventists, Presbyterians, Nazarenes,\nHoly Rollers, and others. Then the query arose: Whose prayers will be\nanswered on my behalf? Each is sure that _his_ are the ones that can\nbe effective; yet their prayers differ; they are, to some degree,\nantagonistic, and insofar as they petition that I become one of their\nparticular fold, they nullify each other, as it is utterly impossible\nthat I accept the specific form of faith of each. The consequent\nresult in my own mind is that as I cannot possibly become what all\nthese good people desire I should be, as their desires and prayers for\nme controvert each other, I must respectfully decline to be bound by\nany one of them. I _must_ and _will_ do my own choosing. Hence all the\nworry on my behalf is energy, strength, and effort wasted.\n\nLet me repeat, then, to the worrier about the salvation of others: You\nare in a poor business. _Quit Your Worrying_. Hands off! This is none\nof your concern. Believe as little or as much and what you will for\nyour own soul's salvation, but do not put forth _your_ conceptions as\nthe _only_ conceptions possible of Divine Truth before another soul\nwho may have an immeasurably larger vision than you have. Oh,\nthe pitiableness of man's colossal conceit, the arrogance of his\nignorance. As if the God of the Universe were so small that one\npaltry, finite man could contain in his pint measure of a mind all the\nocean of His power, knowledge, and love. Let your small and wretched\nworries go. Have a little larger faith in the Love of the Infinite\nOne. Tenderly love and trust those whose welfare you seek, and trust\nGod at the same time, but don't worry when you see the dear ones\nwalking in a path you have not chosen for them. Remember your own\nignorance, your own frailties, your own errors, your own mistakes, and\nthen frankly and honestly, fearlessly and directly ask yourself\nthe question if you dare to take upon your own ignorant self the\nresponsibility of seeking to control and guide another living soul as\nto his eternal life.\n\nBrother, Sister, the job is too big for you. It takes God to do that,\nand you are not yet even a perfect human being. Hence, while I long\nfor all spiritual good for my sons and daughters, and for my friends,\nand I pray for them, it is in a large way, without any interjection of\nmy own decisions and conclusions as to what will be good for them.\nI have no fears as I leave them thus in God's hand, and regard every\nworry as sinful on my part, and injurious to them. I have no desire\nthat they should accept my particular brand of faith or belief. While\nI believe absolutely in that which I accept for the guidance of my own\nlife, _I would not fetter their souls with my belief if I could_. They\nare in wiser, better, larger, more loving Hands than mine. And if\nI would not thus fetter my children and friends, I dare not seek to\nfetter others. My business is to live my own religion to the utmost.\nIf I must worry, I will worry about that, though, as I think my\nreaders are well aware by now, I do not believe in any kind of worry\non any subject whatever.\n\nHence, let me again affirm in concluding this chapter, I regard worry\nabout the religion of others as unwarrantable on account of our own\nignorances as to their peculiar needs, as well as of God's methods of\nsupplying those needs. It is also a useless expenditure of strength,\nenergy, and affection, for, if God leads, your worry cannot possibly\naffect the one so led. It is also generally an irritant to the one\nworried over. Even though he may not formulate it into words he feels\nthat it is an interference with his own inner life, a nagging that\nhe resents, and, therefore, it does him far more harm than good;\nand, finally, it is an altogether indefensible attempt to saddle\nupon another soul your own faith or belief, which may be altogether\nunsuitable or inadequate to the needs of that soul.\n\nThere is still one other form of worry connected with the subject\nof religion. Many a good man and woman worries over the apparent\nwell-being and success of those whom he, she, accounts wicked! They\nare seen to flourish as a green bay tree, or as a well-watered garden,\nand this seems to be unfair, unjust, and unwise on the part of the\npowers that govern the universe. If good is desirable, people ought\nto be encouraged to it by material success--so reason these officially\ngood wiseacres, who subconsciously wish to dictate to God how He\nshould run His world.\n\nHow often we hear the question: \"Why is it the wicked prosper so?\" or\n\"He's such a bad man and yet everything he does prospers.\" Holy Writ\nis very clear on this subject. The sacred writer evidently was well\nposted on the tendency of human nature to worry and concern itself\nabout the affairs of others, hence his injunction:\n\n  Fret not thyself because of evil doers.\n\nIn other words, it's none of your business. And I am inclined to\nbelieve that a careful study of the Bible would reveal to every\nbusybody who worries over the affairs of others that he himself has\nenough to do to attend to himself, and that his worry anyhow is a\nridiculous, absurd, and senseless piece of supererogation, and rather\na proof of human conceit and vanity than of true concern for the\nspiritual good of others.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nAMBITION AND WORRY\n\n\nSome forms of ambition are sure and certain developers and feeders of\nworry and fretful distress, and should be guarded against with jealous\ncare. We hear a great deal from our physicians of the germs of disease\nthat seize upon us and infect our whole being, but not all the disease\ngerms that ever infected a race are so demoralizing to one's peace and\njoy as are the germs of such deadly mental diseases as those of envy,\nmalice, covetousness, ambition, and the like. Ambition, like wine, is\na mocker. It is a vain deluder of men. It takes an elevated position\nand beckons to you to rise, that you may be seen and flattered of men.\nIt does not say: \"Gain strength and power, wisdom and virtue, so that\nmen will place you upon the pedestal of their veneration, respect,\nand love,\" but it bids you seize the \"spotlight\" and hold it, and no\nsooner are you there than it begins to pester you, as with a hundred\nthousand hornets, flying around and stinging you, with doubts and\nquestionings as to whether your fellows see you in this elevated\nplace, whether they really discern your worth, your beauty, your\nshining qualities; and, furthermore, it quickens your hearing, and\nbids you strain to listen to what they say about you, and as you do\nso, you are pricked, stabbed, wounded by their slighting and jeering\nremarks, their scornful comments upon your impertinent and impudent\narrogance at daring to take such a place, and their open denial of\nyour possession of any of the qualities which would entitle you to so\nhonored a position in the eyes of men.\n\nThen, too, it must be recalled that, when fired with the desires of\nthis mocker, ambition, one is inclined, in his selfish absorption, to\nbe ruthless in his dealings with others. It is so easy to trample upon\nothers when a siren is beckoning you to climb higher, and your ears\nare eagerly listening to her seductive phrases. With her song in\nyour ears, you cannot hear the wails of anguish of others, upon whose\nrights and life you trample, the manly rebukes of those you wound,\nor the stern remonstrances of those who bid you heed your course.\nAmbition blinds and deafens, and, alas, calluses the heart, kills\ncomradeship, drives away friendship in its eager selfishness, and in\nso doing, lets in a flood of worries that ever beset its victims. They\nmay not always be in evidence while there is the momentary triumph of\nclimbing, but they are there waiting, ready to teeter the pedestal,\nwhisper of its unsure and unstable condition, call attention to those\nwho are digging around its foundations, and to the fliers in the air,\nwho threaten to hurl down bombs and completely destroy it.\n\nPhaeton begged that his father, Phoebus Apollo, allow him to drive\nthe flaming chariot of day through the heavens, and, in spite of all\nwarnings and cautions, insisted upon his power and ability. Though\ninstructed and informed as to the great dangers he evoked, he seized\nthe reins with delight, stood up in the chariot, and urged on the\nsnorting steeds to furious speed. Soon conscious of a lighter load\nthan usual, the steeds dashed on, tossing the chariot as a ship at\nsea, and rushed headlong from the traveled road of the middle zone.\nThe Great and Little Bear were scorched, and the Serpent that coils\naround the North Pole was warmed to life. Now filled with fear and\ndread, Phaeton lost self-control, and looked repentant to the goal\nwhich he could never reach. The unrestrained steeds dashed hither and\nthither among the stars, and reaching the Earth, set fire to trees,\ncities, harvests, mountains. The air became hot and lurid. The rivers,\nsprings, and snowbanks were dried up. The Earth then cried out in her\nagony to Jupiter for relief, and he launched a thunderbolt at the now\ncowed and broken-hearted driver, which not only struck him from the\nseat he had dishonored, but also out of existence.\n\nThe old mythologists were no fools. They saw the worries, the dangers,\nthe sure end of ambition. They wrote their cautions and warnings\nagainst it in this graphic story. Why will men and women, for the sake\nof an uncertain and unsure goal, tempt the Fates, and, at the same\ntime, surely bring upon themselves a thousand unnecessary worries\nthat sting, nag, taunt, fret, and distress? Far better seek a goal of\ncertainty, a harbor of sureness, in the doing of kindly deeds, noble\nactions, unselfish devotion to the uplift of others. In this mad rush\nof ambitious selfishness, such a life aim may _seem_ chimerical, yet\nit is the only aim that will reach, attain, endure. For all earthly\nfame, ambitious attainment, honor, glory is evanescent and temporary.\nLike the wealth of the miser, it must be left behind. There is no\npocket in any shroud yet devised which will convey wealth across the\nRiver of Death, and no man's honors and fame but that fade in the\nclear light of the Spirit that shines in the land beyond.\n\nThen, ambitious friend, quit your worrying, readjust your aim, trim\nyour lamp for another and better guest, live for the uplift of others,\nseek to give help and strength to the needy, bring sunshine to the\ndarkened, give of your abundance of spirit and exuberance to those who\nhave little or none, and thus will you lay up treasure within your own\nsoul which will convert hell into heaven, and give you joy forever.\n\nSo long as men and women believe that happiness lies in outdistancing,\nsurpassing their fellows in exterior or material things, they cannot\nhelp but be subjects to worry. To determine to gain a larger fortune\nthan that possessed by another man is a sure invitation to worry\nto enter into possession of one's soul. Who has not seen the vain\nstruggles, the distress, the worry of unsatisfied ambitions that would\nhave amounted to nothing had they been gratified? In Women's Clubs--as\nwell as men's--many a heart-ache is caused because some other woman\ngains an office, is elected to a position, is appointed on a committee\nyou had coveted.\n\nThe remedy for this kind of worry is to change the aim of life.\nInstead of making position, fame, the attainment of fortune, office, a\nfine house, an automobile, the object of existence, make _the doing\nof something worthy a noble manhood or womanhood the object of your\nambition_. Strive to make yourself _worthy_ to be the best president\nyour club has ever had; endeavor to be the finest equipped, mentally,\nfor the work that is to be done, _whether you are chosen to do it or\nnot_, and keep on, and on, and still on, finding your joy in the work,\nin the benefit it is to yourself, in the power it is storing up within\nyou.\n\nThen, as sure as the sun shines, the time will come when you will be\nchosen to do the needed work. \"Your own will come to you.\" Nothing can\nhinder it. It will flow as certainly into your hands as the waters of\nthe river flow into the sea.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nENVY AND WORRY\n\n\nEnvy is a prolific source of worry. Once allow this demon of unrest\nto fasten itself in one's vitals, and worry claims every waking\nhour. Envy is that peculiar demon of discontent that cannot see\nthe abilities, attainments, achievements, or possessions of another\nwithout malicious determination to belittle, deride, make light of, or\nabsolutely deny their existence, while all the time covetously craving\nthem for itself. Andrew Tooke pictures Envy as a vile female:\n\n  A deadly paleness in her cheek was seen;\n  Her meager skeleton scarce cased with skin;\n  Her looks awry; an everlasting scowl\n  Sits on her brow; her teeth deform'd and foul;\n  Her breast had gall more than her breast could hold;\n  Beneath her tongue coats of poison roll'd;\n  No smile e'er smooth'd her furrow'd brow but those\n  Which rose from laughing at another's woes;\n  Her eyes were strangers to the sweets of sleep,\n  Devouring spite for ever waking keep;\n  She sees bless'd men with vast success crown'd,\n  Their joys distract her, and their glories wound;\n  She kills abroad, herself's consum'd at home,\n  And her own crimes are her perpetual martyrdom.\n\nEver watching, with bloodshot eyes, the good things of others, she\nhates them for their possessions, longs to possess them herself,\nlets her covetousness gnaw hourly at her very vitals, and yet, in\nconversation with others, slays with slander, vile innuendo, and\nfalsehood, the reputation of those whose virtues she covets.\n\nAs Robert Pollock wrote of one full of envy:\n\n  It was his earnest work and daily toil\n  With lying tongue, to make the noble seem\n  Mean as himself.\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Whene'er he heard,\n  As oft he did, of joy and happiness,\n  And great prosperity, and rising worth,\n  'Twas like a wave of wormwood o'er his soul\n  Rolling its bitterness.\n\nAye! and he drank in great draughts of this bitter flood, holding it\nin his mouth, tasting its foul and biting qualities until his whole\nbeing seemed saturated with it, hating it, dreading it, suffering\nevery moment while doing it, yet enduring it, because of his envy at\nthe good of others.\n\nFew there are, who, at some time or other in their lives, do not have\na taste, at least, of the stinging bite of envy. Girls are envious of\neach other's good looks, clothes, possessions, houses, friends; boys\nof the strength, skill, ability, popularity of others; women of other\nwomen, men of other men, just as when they were boys and girls.\n\nOne of the strongest words the great Socrates ever wrote was against\nenvy. He said:\n\n    Envy is the daughter of pride, the author of murder and\n    revenge, the beginner of secret sedition, the perpetual\n    tormentor of virtue. Envy is the filthy slime of the soul; a\n    venom, a poison, a quicksilver, which consumeth the flesh, and\n    drieth up the marrow of the bones.\n\nAnd history clearly shows that the wise philosopher stated facts.\nCaligula slew his brother because he possessed a beauty that led him\nto be more esteemed and favored than he. Dionysius, the tyrant, was\nvindictive and cruel to Philoxenius, the musician, because he could\nsing; and with Plato, the philosopher, because he could dispute,\nbetter than himself. Even the great Cambyses slew his brother,\nSmerdis, because he was a stronger and better bowman than himself or\nany of his party. It was envy that led the courtiers of Spain to crave\nand seek the destruction of Columbus, and envy that set a score of\nenemies at the heels of Cortes, the conqueror of Peru.\n\nIt is a fearful and vindictive devil, is this devil of envy, and he\nwho yields to it, who once allows it admittance to the citadel of his\nheart, will soon learn that every subsequent waking and even sleeping\nmoment is one of worry and distress.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nDISCONTENT AND WORRY\n\n\nClosely allied to envy is discontent. These are blood relations, and\nboth are prolific sources of worry. And lest there are those who\nthink because I have revealed, in the preceding chapter, the demon of\nworry--envy--as one that attacks the minds of the great and mighty, it\ndoes not enter the hearts of everyday people, let me quote, entire, an\narticle and a poem recently written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in _The Los\nAngeles Examiner_. The discontent referred to clearly comes from envy.\nSome one has blond tresses, while she has black. This arouses her\nenvy. She is envious because another's eyes are blue, while hers\nare brown; another is tall, while she is small; etc., etc. There is\nnothing, indeed, that she cannot weep and worry over:\n\n  There is a certain girl I know, a pretty little elf,\n  Who spends almost her entire thoughts in pity for herself.\n\n  Her glossy tresses, raven black, cause her to weep a pond--\n  She is so sorry for herself because they are not blond.\n\n  Her eyes, when dry, are very bright and very brown, 'tis true,\n  But they are almost always wet, because they are not blue.\n\n  She is of medium height, and when she sees one quite tall\n  She weeps all day in keenest pain because she is so small.\n\n  But if she meets some tiny girl whom she considers fair,\n  Then that she is so big herself she sobs in great despair.\n\n  When out upon a promenade her tears she cannot hide,\n  To think she is obliged to walk while other folks can ride.\n\n  But if she drives, why then she weeps--it is so hard to be\n  Perched stiffly in a carriage seat while other girls run free.\n\n  She used to cry herself quite sick to think she had to go\n  Month after month to dreary schools; that was her constant woe.\n\n  But on her graduating day, my, how her tears did run!\n  It seemed so sorrowful to know that her school life was done.\n\n  One day she wept because she saw a funeral train go by--\n  It was so sad that she must live while other folks could die.\n\n  And really all her friends will soon join with her in those tears\n  Unless she takes a brighter view of life ere many years.\n\nThe conceited girl or woman is tiresome and unpleasant as a companion,\nbut the morbidly discontented woman is far worse. Perhaps you have met\nher, with her eternal complaint of the injustice of Fate toward her.\n\nShe feels that she is born for better things than have befallen her;\nher family does not understand her; her friends misjudge her; the\npublic slights her.\n\nIf she is married she finds herself superior to her husband and to her\nassociates. She is eternally longing for what she has not, and when\nshe gets it is dissatisfied.\n\nThe sorrowful side of life alone appeals to her.\n\nThis she believes is due to her \"artistic nature.\" The injustice of\nfortune and the unkindness of society are topics dear to her heart.\nShe finds her only rapture in misery.\n\nIf she is religiously inclined she looks toward Heaven with more grim\nsatisfaction in the thought that it will strip fame, favor and fortune\nfrom the unworthy than because it will give her the benefits she feels\nshe deserves.\n\nShe does not dream that she is losing years of Heaven here upon earth\nby her own mental attitude.\n\nWE BUILD OUR HEAVENS THOUGHT BY THOUGHT.\n\nIf you are dwelling upon the dark phases of your destiny and upon the\nungracious acts of Fate, you are shaping more of the same experience\nfor yourself here and in realms beyond.\n\nYou are making happiness impossible for yourself upon any plane. In\nyour own self lies Destiny.\n\nI have known a woman to keep her entire family despondent for years by\nher continual assertions that she was out of her sphere, misunderstood\nand unappreciated.\n\nThe minds of sensitive children accepted these statements and grieved\nover \"Poor Mother's\" sad life until their own youth was embittered.\nThe morbid mother seized upon the sympathies of her children like a\nleech and sapped their young lives of joy.\n\nThe husband grew discouraged and indifferent under the continual\nstrain, and what might have been a happy home was a desolate one, and\nits memory is a nightmare to the children to-day.\n\n    Understand yourself and your Divine possibilities and you will\n    cease to think you are misunderstood.\n\n    It is not possible to misunderstand a beautiful, sunny day.\n    All nature rejoices in its loveliness.\n\n    Give love, cheerfulness, kindness and good-will to all\n    humanity, and you need not worry about being misunderstood.\n\n    Give the best you have to each object, purpose and individual,\n    and you will eventually receive the best from humanity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nCOWARDICE AND WORRY\n\n\nCowardice is a much more prolific source of worry than most people\nimagine. There are many varieties of cowardice, all tracing their\nancestry back to fear. Fear truly makes cowards of us all. There are\nthe physical cowards, the social cowards, the business cowards, the\nhang-on-to-your-job cowards, the political cowards, the moral cowards,\nthe religious cowards, and fifty-seven, nay, a hundred and one other\nvarieties. Each and all of these have their own attendant demons of\nworry. Every barking dog becomes a lion ready to tear one to pieces,\nand no bridge is strong enough to allow us to pass over in safety. No\ncloud has a silver lining, and every rain-storm is sure to work\ninjury to the crops rather than bring the needful moisture for their\nvivification.\n\nWhat a piteous sight to see a man who dares not express his honest\nopinions, who must crawl instead of walk upright, in the presence of\nhis employer, lest he lose his job. How his cowardice worries him,\nmeets him at every turn, torments him, lest some incautious word be\nrepeated, lest he say or do the wrong thing. And so long as there\nare cowards to employ, bully employers will exist. Nay, the cowardice\nseems to call out bullying qualities. Just as a cur will follow you\nwith barkings and threatening growls if you run from him, and yet turn\ntail and run when you boldly face him, so with most men, with society,\nwith the world--flee from them, show your fear of them, and they will\nharry you, but boldly face them, they gentle down immediately, fawn\nupon you, lie down, or, to use an expressive slang phrase, \"come and\neat out of your hand.\"\n\nHow politicians straddle the fence, refrain from expressing their\nopinions, deal in glittering generalities, because of their cowardly\nfears. How they turn their sails to catch every breath of popular\nfavor. How cautious, politic, wary, they are, and how fears worry and\nbesiege them, whenever they accidentally or incidentally say something\nthat can be interpreted as a positive conviction. And yet men really\nlove a brave man in political life; one who has definite convictions\nand fearlessly states them; who has no worries as to results but dares\nto say and do those things only of which his conscience approves. No\nmatter how one may regard Roosevelt, cowardice is one thing none will\naccuse him of. He says his say, does his will, expresses himself with\nfreedom upon any and all subjects, let results be as they may. Such\na man is free from the petty worries that beset most politicians.\nHe knows nothing of their existence. They cannot breathe in the free\natmosphere that is essential to his life; like the cowardly cur, they\nrun away at his approach.\n\nOh, cowards all, of every kind and degree, quit ye like men, be strong\nand of good courage, dare and do, dare and say, dare and be, take a\nmanly stand, fling out your banner boldly to the breeze, cry out as\ndid Patrick Henry: \"Give me liberty, or give me death,\" or as that\nother patriot did: \"Sink or swim, survive or perish, I give my hand\nand my heart to this vote.\" Do the things you are afraid of; dare the\nmen who make cowards of you; say the things you fear to say; and be\nthe things you know you ought to be, and it will surprise you how the\npetty devils of worry will slink away from you. You will walk in new\nlife, in new strength, in new joy, in new freedom. For he who lives a\nlife free from worries of this nature, has a spontaneity, a freedom,\nan exuberance, an enthusiasm, a boldness, that not only are winsome in\nthemselves, make friends, open the doors of opportunity, attract the\nmoving elements of life, but that give to their possessor an entirely\nnew outlook, a wider survey, a more comprehensive grasp. Life itself\nbecomes bigger, grander, more majestic, more worth while, the whole\nhorizon expands, and from being a creature of petty affairs, dabbling\nin a small way in the stuff of which events are made, he becomes a\npotent factor, a man, a creator, a god, though in the germ.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nWORRY ABOUT MANNERS AND SPEECH\n\n\nMany people are desperately worried about their manners. One has\nbut to read the letters written to the \"Answers to Correspondents\"\ndepartments of the newspapers to see how much worry this subject of\nmanners causes. This springs, undoubtedly, from a variety of causes.\nPeople brought up in the country, removing to the city, find the\nconditions of life very different from those to which they have been\naccustomed, and they are _uncertain_ as to what city people regard\nas the right and proper things to do. Where one, perforce, must act,\nuncertainty is always irritating or worrying, and, because of this\nuncertainty, many people worry even before the time comes to act. Now,\nif their worry would take a practical and useful turn--or, perhaps, I\nhad better state it in another way, viz., that if they would spend\nthe same time in deciding what their course of action should be--there\nwould be an end put to the worry.\n\nWe have all seen such people. They are worried lest their clothes are\nnot all right for the occasion, lest their tie is of the wrong shade,\ntheir shoes of the correct style, and a thousand and one things that\nthey seem to conjure up for the especial purpose of worrying over\nthem. Who has not seen the nervousness, the worried expression on the\nface, the real misery of such people, caused by trifles that are so\ninsignificant as not to be worth one-tenth the bother wasted on them.\n\nThe learning of a few fundamental principles will help out\nwonderfully. The chief end of \"good manners\" is to oil the wheels\nof social converse. Hence, the first and most important principle to\nlearn is a due and proper consideration for the rights, opinions, and\ncomfort of others. In other words, don't think of yourself so much as\nof the other fellow. Let your question be, not: How can I secure\nmy own pleasure and comfort? but How can I best secure his? It is a\nself-evident proposition that you cannot make him feel comfortable and\nhappy if you are uncomfortable and unhappy. Hence, the first thing to\ndo is to quit worrying and be comfortable. This desired state of mind\nwill come as soon as you have courageously made up your mind as to\nwhat standard of manners you intend to follow. The world is made up\nto-day, largely, of two classes: those who have money, and those who\ndon't. Of the former class, a certain few set themselves up as the\narbiters of good manners; they decide what shall be called \"good\nform,\" and what is not allowable. If you belong to that class, the\nbest thing you can do is to learn \"to play the game their way.\" Study\ntheir rules of calling cards, and learn whether you leave one, two,\nthree, or six when you are calling upon a man, or a woman, or both, or\ntheir oldest unmarried daughter, or the rest of the family. This is\na regular game like golf, or polo. You have to know the course, the\ntools to use, and the method of going from one goal to another. Now, I\nnever knew any ordinarily intelligent man or woman who couldn't learn\nthe names of the tools used in golf, the numbers of the holes, and the\nrules of the game. _How_ you play the game is another matter. And so\nis it in \"good society.\" You can learn the rules as easily as the next\none, and then it is \"up to you\" as to _how_ you play it. You'll have\nto study the fashions in clothes; the fashions in handkerchiefs, and\nhow to flirt with them; when to drink tea, and where; how to lose\nmoney gracefully at bridge; how to gabble incessantly and not know\nwhat you are talking about; how to listen \"intelligently\" and not have\nthe remotest idea what your _vis-a-vis_ is saying to you; you'll have\nto join 'steen clubs, and read ten new novels a day; go to every new\nplay; know all about the latest movies; know all the latest ideas\nof social uplift, study art, the spiritual essence of color, the\nfuturists, and the cubists. Of course, you'll study the peerage of\nEngland and know all about rank and precedence--and, indeed, you'll\nhave your hands and mind so full of things that will make such a hash\nof life that it will take ten specialists to straighten you out and\nhelp you to die forty years before your time. Hence, if that is the\nlife you intend to live, throw this book into the fire. It will be\nwasting your time to read it.\n\nIf you don't belong to the class of the extra rich, but are all the\ntime wishing that you did; that you had their money, could live as\nthey live, and, as far as you can, you imitate, copy, and follow\nthem, then, again, I recommend that you give this book to the nearest\nnewsboy and let him sell it and get some good out of it. You are not\nyet ready for it, or else you have gone so far beyond me in life, that\nyou are out of my reach.\n\nIf, on the other hand, you belong to the class of _workers_, those who\nhave to earn their living and wish to spend their lives intelligently\nand usefully, you can well afford to disregard--after you have learned\nto apply the few basic principles of social converse--the whims, the\ncaprices, the artificial code set up by the so-called arbiters of\nfashion, manners, and \"good form,\" which are not formulated for\nthe promotion of intelligent intercourse between real manhood and\nwomanhood, but for the preservation and strengthening of the barriers\nof wealth and caste.\n\nConnected with this phase of the subject is a consideration of those\nwho are worried lest in word or action, they fail in gentility. They\nare afraid to do anything lest it should not be regarded as genteel.\nWhen they shake hands, it must be done not so much with hearty,\nfriendly spontaneity, but with gentility, and you wonder what that\nfaint touch of fingers, reached high in air, means. They would be\nmortified beyond measure if they failed to observe any of the little\ngentilities of life, while the larger consideration of their visitor's\ndisregard of the matter, would entirely escape them. To such people,\nsocial intercourse is a perpetual worry and bugbear. They are on the\nwatch every moment, and if a visitor fails to say, \"Pardon me,\" at the\nproper place, or stands with his back to his hostess for a moment, or\ndoes any other of the things that natural men and women often do, they\nare \"shocked.\"\n\nThen it would be amusing, were it not pathetic, to see how particular\nthey are about their speech--_what_ they say, and _how_ they say it.\nAs Dr. Palmer has tersely said: \"We are terrorized by custom, and\ninclined to adjust what we would say to what others have said before,\"\nand he might have added: It must be said in the same manner.\n\nI cannot help asking why men and women should be terrorized by\ncustom--the method followed or prescribed by other men and women. Why\nbe so afraid of others; why so anxious to \"kow-tow\" to the standards\nof others? Who are they? What are they, that they should demand the\nreverent following of the world? Have you anything to say? Have you\na right to say it? Is it wise to say it? Then, in the name of God, of\nmanhood, of common sense, say it, directly, positively, assertively,\nas is your right, remembering the assurance of the Declaration of\nIndependence that \"all men are created equal.\" Don't worry about\nwhether you are saying it in the genteel fashion of some one else's\nstandard. Make your own standard. Even the standards of the grammar\nbooks and dictionaries are not equal to that of a man who has\nsomething to say and says it forcefully, truthfully, pointedly,\ndirectly. Dr. Palmer has a few words to say on this phase of the\nsubject, which are well worthy serious consideration: \"The cure for\nthe first of these troubles is to keep our eyes on our object, instead\nof on our listener or ourselves; and for the second, to learn to rate\nthe expressiveness of language more highly than its compeers.\nThe opposite of this, the disposition to set correctness above\nexpressiveness, produces that peculiarly vulgar diction, known as\n\"school-ma'am English,\" in which for the sake of a dull accord with\nusage, all the picturesque, imaginative, and forceful employment of\nwords is sacrificed.\"\n\nThere you have it! If you have something to say that really means\nsomething, think of that, rather than of the way of saying it, your\nhearer, or yourself. Thus you will lose your self-consciousness, your\ndread, your fear, your worry. If your thought is worth anything,\nyou can afford to laugh at some small violation of grammar, or the\nknocking over of some finical standard or other. Not that I would be\nthought to advocate either carelessness, laziness, or indifference in\nspeech. Quite the contrary, as all who have heard me speak well know.\nBut I fully believe that _thought_ is of greater importance than _form\nof expression_. And, as for grammar, I believe with Thomas Jefferson,\nthat \"whenever, by small grammatical negligences, the energy of your\nideas can be condensed or a word be made to stand for a sentence, I\nhold grammatical rigor in contempt.\"\n\nI was present once when Thomas Carlyle and a technical grammarian\nwere talking over some violation of correct speech--according to the\nlatter's standard--when Carlyle suddenly burst forth in effect, in his\nrich Scotch burr: \"Why, mon, I'd have ye ken that I'm one of the men\nthat make the language for little puppies like ye to paw over with\nyour little, fiddling, twiddling grammars!\"\n\nBy all means, know all the grammar you can. Read the best of poets and\nprose authors to see how they have mastered the language, but don't\nallow your life to become a burden to you and others because of your\nworry lest you \"slip a grammatical cog\" here and there, when you know\nyou have something worth saying. And if you haven't anything worth\nsaying, please, please, keep your mouth shut, no matter what the\ngenteel books prescribe, for nothing can justify the talk of an\nempty-headed fool who will insist upon talking when he and his\nlisteners know he has nothing whatever to say. So, if you must worry,\nlet it be about something worth while--getting hold of ideas, the\nstrength of your thought, the power of your emotion, the irresistible\nsweep of your enthusiasm, the forcefulness of your indignation about\nwrong. These are things it is worth while to set your mind upon, and\nwhen you have decided what you ought to say, and are absorbed with\nthe power of its thought, the need the world has for it, you will care\nlittle about the exact form of your words. Like the flood of a mighty\nstream, they will pour forth, carrying conviction with them, and to\nconvince your hearer of some powerful truth is an object worthy the\nhighest endeavor of a godlike man or woman--surely a far different\nobject than worrying as to whether the words or method of expression\nmeet some absurd standard of what is conceived to be \"gentility.\"\n\nCongressman Hobson, of Merrimac fame, and Ex-President Roosevelt are\nboth wonderful illustrations of the point I am endeavoring to impress\nupon my readers. I heard Hobson when, in Philadelphia, at a public\ndinner given in his honor, he made his first speech after his return\nfrom Cuba. It was evident that he had been, and was, much worried\nabout what he should say, and the result was everybody else was\nworried as he tried to say it. His address was a pitiable failure,\nmainly because he had little or nothing to say, and yet tried to make\na speech. Later he entered Congress, began to feel intensely upon the\nsubjects of national defense and prohibition of the alcoholic liquor\ntraffic. A year or so ago I heard him speak on the latter of these\nsubjects. Here, now, was an entirely different man. He was possesed\nwith a great idea. He was no longer trying to find something to say,\nbut in a powerful, earnest, and enthusiastic way, he poured forth\nfacts, figures, argument, and illustration, that could not fail to\nconvince an open mind, and profoundly impress even the prejudiced.\n\nIt was the same with Roosevelt. When he first began to speak in\npublic, it was hard work. He wrote his addresses beforehand, and then\nread them. Perhaps he does now, for aught I know to the contrary, but\nI do know that now that he is full of the subjects of national honor\nin dealing with such cases as Mexico, Belgium, and Armenia, and our\npreparedness to sacrifice life itself rather than honor, his words\npour forth in a perfect Niagara of strong, robust, manly argument,\nprotest, and remonstrance, which gives one food for deep thought no\nmatter how much he may differ.\n\nThere are those who worry about the \"gentility\" of others. I remember\nwhen Charles Wagner, the author of _The Simple Life_, was in this\ncountry. We were dining at the home of a friend and one of these\nsuper-sensitive, finical sticklers for gentility was present. Wagner\nwas speaking in his big, these super-sensitive, finical sticklers for\ngentility simple, primitive way of a man brought up as a peasant,\nand more concerned about what he was thinking than whether his \"table\nmanners\" conformed to the latest standard. There was some gravy on his\nplate. He wanted it. He took a piece of bread and used it as a sop,\nand then, impaling the gravy-soaked bread on his fork, he conveyed it\nto his mouth with gusto and relish. My \"genteel\" friend commented upon\nit afterwards as \"disgusting,\" and lost all interest in the man and\nhis work as a consequence.\n\nTo my mind, the criticism was that of a fool.\n\nJohn Muir, the eminent poet-naturalist of the _Mountains of\nCalifornia_, had a habit at the table of \"crumming\" his bread--that\nis, toying with it, until it crumbled to pieces in his hand. He\nwould, at the same time, be sending out a steady stream of the most\nentertaining, interesting, fascinating, and instructive lore about\nbirds and beasts, trees and flowers, glaciers and rocks, that one\never listened to. In his mental occupancy, he knew not whether he was\neating his soup with a fork or an ice-cream spoon--and cares less.\nNeither did any one else with brains and an awakened mind that soared\nabove mere conventional manners. And yet I once had an Eastern woman\nof great wealth, (recently acquired), and of great pretensions to\nsocial \"manners,\" at whose table Muir had eaten, inform me that she\nregarded him as a rude boor, because, forsooth, he was unmindful\nof these trivial and unimportant conventions when engaged in\nconversation.\n\nNow, neither Wagner nor Muir would justify any advocacy on my part of\nneglect of true consideration, courtesy, or good manners. But where\nis the \"lack of breeding\" in sopping up gravy with a piece of bread or\n\"crumming,\" or eating soup with a spoon of one shape or another? These\nare purely arbitrary rules, laid down by people who have more time\nthan sense, money than brains, and who, as I have elsewhere remarked,\nare far more anxious to preserve the barand unimportant conventions\nwhen engaged in conive realization of the biblical idea of the\n\"brotherhood of man.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nTHE WORRIES OF JEALOUSY\n\n\nA prolific source of worry is jealousy; not only the jealousy that\nexists between men and women, but that exists between women and women,\nand between men and men. There are a thousand forms that this hideous\nmonster of evil assumes, and when they have been catalogued and\nclassified, another thousand will be found awaiting, around the\ncorner, of entirely different categories. But all alike they have\none definite origin, one source, one cause. And that cause, I am\nconvinced, is selfishness. We wish to own, to dominate, to control,\nabsolutely, entirely, for our own pleasure, and satisfaction, that of\nwhich we are jealous. In Chapter One I tell the incident of the young\nman on the street car whose jealous worry was so manifest when he\nsaw his \"girl\" smiling upon another man. I suppose most men and women\nfeel, or have felt, at some time or other, this sex jealousy. That\nwoman belongs to _me_, her smiles are _mine_, her pleasant words\nshould fall on _my_ ear alone; _I_ am her lover, she, the mistress of\n_my_ heart; and that should content her.\n\nEvery writer of the human heart has expatiated upon this great source\nof worry--jealousy. Shakspere refers to it again and again. The whole\nplay of _Othello_ rests upon the Moor's jealousy of his fair, sweet,\nand loyally faithful Desdemona. How the fiendish Iago plays upon\nOthello's jealous heart until one sees that:\n\n  Trifles, light as air,\n  Are to the jealous confirmations strong\n  As proofs of holy writ.\n\nIago bitterly resents a slight he feels Othello has put upon him. With\nhis large, generous, unsuspicious nature, Othello never dreams of such\na thing; he trusts Iago as his intimate friend, and thus gives the\ncrafty fiend the oportunity he desires to\n\n          put the Moor\n  Into a jealousy so strong\n  That judgment cannot cure ...\n  Make the Moor thank me, love me, reward me,\n  For making him egregiously an ass\n  And practicing upon his peace and quiet\n  Even to madness.\n\nOthello gives his wife, Desdemona, a rare handkerchief. Iago urges his\nown wife, who is Desdemona's maid, to pilfer this and bring it to him.\nWhen he gets it, he leaves it in Cassio's room. Cassio was an intimate\nfriend of Othello's, one, indeed, who had gone with him when he went\nto woo Desdemona, and who, by Iago's machinations, had been suspended\nfrom his office of Othello's chief lieutenant. To provoke Othello's\njealousy Iago now urges Desdemona to plead Cassio's cause with her\nhusband, and at the came time eggs on Othello to watch Cassio:\n\n  Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;\n  Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure.\n  I would not have your free and noble nature\n  Out of self-bounty be abus'd; look to 't.\n\nThus he works Othello up to a rage, and yet all the time pretends to\nbe holding him back:\n\n         I do see you're mov'd;\n  I pray you not to strain my speech\n  To grosser issues nor to larger reach\n  Than to suspicion.\n\nIago leaves the handkerchief in Cassio's room, at the same time\nsaying:\n\n  The Moor already changes with my poison;\n  Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,\n  Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,\n  But with a little act upon the blood,\n  Burn like the mines of sulphur.\n\nAnd as he sees the tortures the jealous worries of the Moor have\nalready produced in him, he exultingly yet stealthily rejoices:\n\n          Not poppy, nor mandragora,\n  Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,\n  Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep\n  Which thou hadst yesterday.\n\nWell might Othello exclaim that he is \"Set on the rack.\" Each new\nsuspicion is a fresh pull of the lever, a tightening of the strain\nto breaking point, and soon his jealousy turns to the fierce and\nmurderous anger Iago hoped it would:\n\n            Like to the Pontic sea,\n  Whose icy current and compulsive course\n  Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on\n  To the Propontic and the Hellespont,\n  Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,\n  Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,\n  Till that a capable and wide revenge\n  Swallow them up.\n\nThus was he urged on, worried by his jealousy, until, in his bloody\nrage, he slew his faithful wife. Poor Desdemona, we weep her fate, yet\nat the same time we should deeply lament that Othello was so beguiled\nand seduced by his jealousy to so horrible a deed. And few men or\nwomen there are, unless their souls are purified by the wisdom of God,\nthat are not liable to jealous influences. Our human nature is weak\nand full of subtle treacheries, that, like Iago, seduce us to our own\nundoing. He who yields for one moment to the worries of jealousy\nis already on the downward path that leads to misery, woe and deep\nundoing, Iago is made to declare the philosophy of this fact, when, in\nthe early portion of the play he says to Roderigo:\n\n    'Tis in ourselves we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our\n    gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if\n    we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up\n    thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with\n    many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with\n    industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies\n    in our wills.\n\nTherein, surely, is great truth. We can plant or weed up, in the\ngarden of our minds, whatever we will; we can \"have it sterile\nwith idleness,\" or fertilize it with industry, and it must ever be\nremembered that the more fertile the soil the more evil weeds will\ngrow apace if we water and tend them. Our jealous worries are the\npoisonous weeds of life's garden and should be rooted out instanter,\nand kept out, until not a sign of them can again be found.\n\nSolomon sang that \"jealousy is as cruel as the grave; the coals\nthereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.\"\n\nWhat a graphic picture of worry--a fire of vehement flame, burning,\nscorching, destroying peace, happiness, content, joy and reducing them\nto ashes.\n\nIn my travel and observation I have found a vast amount of jealous\nworry in institutions of one kind and another--such as the Indian\nService, in reform schools, in humane societies, in hospitals, among\nthe nurses, etc. It seems to be one of the misfortunes of weak human\nnature when men and women associate themselves together to do some\nwork which ought to call out all the nobleness, the magnanimity, the\ngodlike qualities of their souls, they become maggoty with jealous\nworries--worry that they are not accorded the honor that is their\ndue; worry that _their_ work is not properly appreciated; worry lest\nsomeone else becomes a favorite of the Superintendent, etc., etc.,\netc., _ad libitum_. Worries of this nature in every case, are a proof\nof small, or undeveloped, natures. No truly great man or woman can\nbe jealous. Jealousy implies that you are not sure of your own worth,\nability, power. You find someone else is being appreciated, you\n_covet_ that appreciation for yourself, whether you deserve it or not.\nIn other words you yield to accursed selfishness, utterly forgetful of\nthe apostolic injunction: \"In honor preferring one another.\"\n\nAnd the same jealousies are found among men and women in every walk of\nlife, in trade, in the office, among professors in schools, colleges,\nuniversities; in the learned professions, among lawyers, physicians\nand even among the ministers of the gospel, and judges upon the bench.\n\nOh! shame! shame! upon the littleness, the meanness, the paltriness\nof such jealousies; of the worries that come from them. How any human\nbeing is to be pitied whose mortal mind is corroded with the biting\nacid of jealous worry. When I see those who are full of worry because\nyielding to this demon of jealousy I am almost inclined to believe\nin the old-time Presbyterian doctrine of \"total depravity.\" Whenever,\nwhere-ever, you find yourself feeling jealous, take yourself by the\nthroat (figuratively), and strangle the feeling, then go and frankly\ncongratulate the person of whom you are jealous upon some good you can\ntruthfully say you see in him; spread his praises abroad; seek to do\nhim honor. Thus by active work against your own paltry emotion you\nwill soon overcome it and be free from its damning and damnable\nworries.\n\nAkin to the worries of jealousy are the worries of hate. How much\nworry hate causes the hater, he alone can tell. He spends hours in\nconjuring up more reasons for his hate than he would care to write\ndown. Every success of the hated is another stimulant to worry, and\neach step forward is a sting full of pain and bitterness.\n\nHe who hates walks along the path of worry, and so long as he hates he\nmust worry. Hence, there is but one practical way of escape from the\nworries of hatred, viz., by ceasing to hate, by overcoming evil with\ngood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nTHE WORRIES OF SUSPICION\n\n\nHe who has a suspicious mind is ever the prey of worry. Such an one is\nto be pitied for he is tossed hither and yon, to and fro, at the whim\nof every breath of suspicion he breathes. He has no real peace of\nmind, no content, no unalloyed joy, for even in his hours of pleasure,\nof recreation, of expected jollity he is worrying lest someone is\ntrying to get ahead of him, his _vis-a-vis_ is \"jollying\" him, his\npartner at golf is trying to steal a march on him, he is not being\nproperly served at the picnic, etc.\n\nThese suspicious-minded people are sure that every man is a scoundrel\nat heart--more or less--and needs to be watched; no man or woman is to\nbe trusted; every grocer will sand his sugar, chicory his coffee, sell\nbutterine for butter, and cold-storage eggs for fresh if he gets a\nchance. To accept the word of a stranger is absurd, as it is also\nto believe in the disinterestedness of a politician, reformer,\noffice-holder, a corporation, or a rich man. But to believe evil,\nto expect to be swindled, or prepare to be deceived is the height\nof perspicacity and wisdom. How wonderfully Shakspere in _Othello_\nportrays the wretchedness of the suspicious man. One reason why Iago\nso hated the Moor was that he suspected him:\n\n               the thoughts whereof\n  Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards,\n  And nothing can or shall content my soul\n  Till I am even'd with him.\n\nHow graphic the simile, \"gnaw my inwards;\" it is the perpetual symbol\nof worry; the poisonous mineral ever biting away the lining of the\nstomach; just as mice and rats gnaw at the backs of the most precious\nbooks and destroy them; aye, as they gnaw during the night-time and\ndrive sleep away from the weary, so does suspicion gnaw with its sharp\nworrying teeth to the destruction of peace, happiness and joy.\n\nThen, when Iago has poisoned Othello's mind with suspicions about his\nwife, how the Moor is worried, gnawed by them:\n\n    By heaven, he echoes me,\n  As if there were some monster in his thought\n  Too hideous to be shown--(To Iago) Thou dost mean something.\n  I heard thee say even now, thou lik'dst not that,\n  When Cassio left my wife; what didst not like?\n  And when I told thee he was of my counsel\n  In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst 'Indeed!'\n  And didst contract and purse thy brow together,\n  As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain\n  Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me,\n  Show me thy thought.\n\nAnd then we know, how, with crafty, devilish cunning, Iago plays upon\nthese suspicions, fans their spark into flames. He pretends to be\ndoing it purely on Othello's account and accuses himself that:\n\n             it is my nature's plague\n  To spy into abuses, and yet my jealousy\n  Shapes faults that are not:\n\nand then cries out:\n\n             O beware, my lord, of jealousy!\n  It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock\n  The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss\n  Who certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;\n  But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er\n  Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!\n\nThere, indeed, the woe of the suspicious is shown. His minutes are\nreally \"damned;\" peace flies his heart, rest from his couch, sanity\nfrom his throne, and, _yielding_ himself, he becomes filled with\nmurderous anger and imperils his salvation here and hereafter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nTHE WORRIES OF IMPATIENCE\n\n\nHow many of our worries come from impatience? We do not want to wait\nuntil the fruition of our endeavors comes naturally, until the time is\nripe, until we are ready for that which we desire. We wish to\noverrule conditions which are beyond our power; we fail to accept\nthe inevitable with a good grace; we refuse to believe in our\ncircumscriptions, our limitations, and in our arrogance and pride\nexpress our anger, our indignation, our impatience.\n\nI have seen people whose auto has broken down, worried fearfully\nbecause they would not arrive somewhere as they planned, and in their\nimpatient fretfulness they annoyed, angered, and upset all around\nthem, without, in one single degree, improving their own condition\nor hastening the repair of the disaster. What folly; what more than\nchildish foolishness.\n\nA child may be excused for its impatience and petulance for it has not\nyet learned the inevitable facts of life--such as that breaks must be\nrepaired, tires must be made so that they will not leak, and that the\ngasoline tank cannot be empty if the machine is to run. But a man, a\nwoman, is supposed to have learned these incontrovertible facts, and\nshould, at the same time, have learned acquiesence in them.\n\nA train is delayed; one has an important engagement; worry seems\ninevitable and excusable. But is it? Where is the use? Will it replace\nthe destroyed bridge, renew the washed out track, repair the broken\nengine? How much better to submit to the inevitable with graceful\nacceptance of the fact, than to fret, stew, worry, and at the same\ntime, irritate everyone around you.\n\nHow serenely Nature rebukes the impatience of the fretful worrier. A\nman plants corn, wheat, barley, potatoes--or trees, that take five,\nseven years to come to bearing, such as the orange, olive, walnut,\ndate, etc. Let him fret ever so much, worry all he likes, chafe and\nfret every hour; let him go and dig up his seeds or plants to urge\ntheir upgrowing; let him even swear in his impatient worry and\nthreaten to smash all his machinery, discharge his men, and turn\nhis stock loose; Nature goes on her way, quietly, unmoved, serenely,\nunhurried, undisturbed by the folly of the one creature of earth who\nis so senseless as to worry--viz., man.\n\nMany a man's hair has turned gray, and many a woman's brow and\ncheeks have become furrowed because of fretful, impatient worry over\nsomething that could not be changed, or hastened, or improved.\n\nMy conception of life is that manhood, womanhood, should rise superior\nto any and all conditions and circumstances. Whatever happens, Spirit\nshould be supreme, superior, in control. And until we learn that\nlesson, life, so far, has failed. Inasmuch as we do learn it, life has\nbecome a success.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nTHE WORRIES OF ANTICIPATION\n\n\nHe crosses every bridge before he comes to it, is a graphic and\nproverbial rendering of a description of the man who worries in\nanticipation. Something, sure, is going to happen. He is always\nfearful, not of what is, but of what is going to be. For twenty years\nhe has managed to live and pay his rent, but at the beginning of each\nmonth he begins afresh to worry where \"next month's rent is going\nto come from.\" He's collected his bills fairly well for a business\nlife-time, but if a debtor fails to send in his check on the very day\nhe begins to worry and fear lest he fail to receive it. His wife has\ngiven him four children, but at the coming of the fifth he is sure\nsomething extraordinarily painful and adverse is going to happen.\n\nHe sees--possibly, here, I should say, _she_ sees--their son climbing\na tree. She is sure he will fall and break a leg, an arm, or his neck.\nHer boy mustn't ride the horse lest he fall and injure himself; if he\ngoes to swim he is surely in danger of being drowned, and she could\nnever allow him or his sister to row in a boat lest it be overturned.\nThe child must be watched momentarily, lest it fall out of the window,\nsearch out a sharp knife, swallow poison, or do some irreparable\ndamage to the bric-a-brac.\n\nHere let me relate an incident the truth of which is vouched for, and\nwhich clearly illustrates the difference between the attitude of worry\nand that of trust. One day, when Flattich, a pious minister of the\nWurtemberg, was seated in his armchair, one of his foster children\nfell out of a second-story window, right before him, to the pavement\nbelow. He calmly ordered his daughter to go and bring up the child.\nOn doing so it was found the little one had sustained no injury.\nA neighbor, however, aroused by the noise, came in and reproached\nFlattich for his carelessness and inattention. While she was thus\nremonstrating, her own child, which she had brought with her, fell\nfrom the bench upon which she had seated it, and broke its arm. \"Do\nyou see, good woman,\" said the minister, \"if you imagine yourself to\nbe the sole guardian of your child, then you must constantly carry it\nin your arms. I commend my children to God; and even though they then\nfall, they are safer than were I to devote my whole time and attention\nto them.\"\n\nThose who anticipate evils for their children too often seem to bring\ndown upon their loved ones the very evils they are afraid of. And one\nof the greatest lessons of life, and one that brings immeasurable\nand uncountable joys when learned, is, that Nature--the great\nFather-Mother of us all--is kindly disposed to us. We need not be so\nalarmed, so fearful, so anticipatory of evil at her hands.\n\nCharles Warren Stoddard used to tell of the great dread Mark Twain was\nwont to feel, during the exhaustion and reaction he felt at the close\nof each of his lectures, lest he should become incapable of further\nwriting and lecturing and therefore become dependent upon his friends\nand die a pauper. How wonderfully he conquered this demon of perpetual\nworry all those who know his life are aware; how that, when his\npublisher failed he took upon himself a heavy financial burden, for\nwhich he was in no way responsible, went on a lecture tour around the\nworld and paid every cent of it, and finally died with his finances in\na most prosperous condition.\n\nThe anticipatory worries of others are just as senseless, foolish and\nabsurd as were those of Mark Twain, and it is possible for every man\nto overcome them, even as did he.\n\nThe cloud we anticipate seldom, if ever, comes, and then, generally,\nin a different direction from where we sought it. Time spent on\nlooking for the cloud, and figuring how much of injury it will do\nus had better be utilized in garnering the hay crop, bringing in the\nlambs, or hauling warm fodder and bedding for them.\n\nThere is another side, however, to this worrying anticipation of\ntroubles. The ancient philosophers recognized it. Lucan wrote: \"The\nvery fear of approaching evil has driven many into peril.\"\n\nThere are those who believe that the very concentration of thought\nupon a possible evil will bring to pass the peculiar arrangement of\ncircumstances that makes the evil. Of this belief I am not competent\nto speak, but I am fully assured that it is far from helpful to be\ncontemplating the possibility of evil. In my own life I have found\nthat worrying over evils in anticipation has not prevented their\ncoming, and, on the other hand, that where I have boldly faced the\nsituation, without fear and its attendant worries, the evil has fled.\n\nHence, whether worries in hand, or worries to come, worries real or\nworries imaginary, the wise, sane and practical course is to kill them\nall and thus _Quit Your Worrying_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nHOW OUR WORRY AFFECTS OTHERS\n\n\nIf worry affected merely ourselves it would be bad enough, but we\ncould tolerate it more than we do. For it is one of the infernal\ncharacteristics of worry that our manifestation of it invariably\naffects others as injuriously as it affects ourselves.\n\nAn employer who worries his employees never gets the good work out\nof them as does the one who has sense enough to keep them happy,\ngood-natured and contented. I was lecturing once for a large\ncorporation. I had two colleagues, who \"spelled me\" every hour. For\nmuch of the time we had no place to rest, work or play between our\nlectures. Our engagement lasted the better part of a year, and the\nresult was that, during that period where our reasonable needs were\nunprovided for, we all failed to give as good work as we were capable\nof. We were unnecessarily worried by inadequate provision and our\nemployers suffered. Henry Ford, and men of his type have learned this\nlesson. Men respond rapidly to those who do not worry them. Governor\nHunt and Warden Sims, of Arizona, have learned the same fact in\ndealing with prisoners of the State Penitentiary. The less the men\nare \"worried\" by unnecessarily harsh treatment, absurd and cruel\nrestrictions, curtailment of natural rights, the better they act, the\neasier they are liable to reform and make good.\n\nDr. Musgrove to his _Nervous Breakdowns_, tells a story of two\ncommanders which well illustrates this point:\n\n    In a certain war two companies of men had to march an equal\n    distance in order to meet at a particular spot. The one\n    arrived in perfect order, and with few signs of exhaustion,\n    although the march had been an arduous one. The other company\n    reached the place utterly done up and disorganised. It was all\n    a question of leadership; the captain of the first company\n    had known his way and kept his men in good order, while the\n    captain of the second company had never been sure of himself,\n    and had harassed his subordinates with a constant succession\n    of orders and counter-orders, until they had hardly known\n    whether they were on their heads or their heels. That was why\n    they arrived completely demoralised.\n\nIn war, as in peace, it is not work that kills so much as worry.\nA general may make his soldiers work to the point of exhaustion as\nNapoleon often did, yet have their almost adoring worship. But the\ngeneral who worries his men gets neither their good will nor good\nwork.\n\nA worrying mother can keep a whole house in a turmoil, from father\ndown to the latest baby. The growing boys and girls soon learn to\ndread the name of \"home,\" and would rather be in school, in the\nbackyard playing, in the attic, at the neighbors, or in the streets,\nanywhere, than within the sound of their mother's worrying voice,\nor frowning countenance. A worrying husband can drive his wife\ndistracted, and vice versa. I was dining not long ago with a couple\nthat, from outward appearance, had everything that heart could desire\nto make them happy. They were young, healthy, had a good income, were\n_both_ engaged in work they liked, yet the husband worried the\nwife constantly about trifles. If she wished to set the table in a\nparticular way he worried because she didn't do it some other way; if\nshe drove one of their autos he worried because she didn't take the\nother; and when she wore a spring-day flowery kind of a hat he worried\nher because his mother never wore any other than a black hat. The\npoor woman was distracted by the absolute absurdities, frivolities and\ninconsequentialities of his worries, yet he didn't seem to have sense\nto see what he was doing. So I gave him a plain practical talk--as I\nhad been drawn into a discussion of the matter without any volition on\nmy part--and urged him to quit irritating his wife so foolishly and so\nunnecessarily.\n\nSome teachers worry their pupils until the latter fail to do the work\nthey are competent to do; and the want of success of many an ambitious\nteacher can often be attributed to his, her, worrying disposition.\nRemember, therefore, that when you worry you are making others unhappy\nas well as yourself, you are putting a damper, a blight, upon other\nlives as well as your own, you are destroying the efficiency of other\nworkers as well as your own, you are robbing others of the joy of life\nwhich God intended them freely to possess. So that for the sake of\nothers, as well as your own, it becomes an imperative duty that you\n\nQUIT YOUR WORRYING.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nWORRY VERSUS INDIFFERENCE\n\n\nThe aim and object of all striving in life should be to grow more\nhuman, more humane, less selfish, more helpful to our fellows. Any\nsystem of life that fails to meet this universal need is predestined\nto failure. When, therefore, I urge upon my readers that they quit\ntheir worrying about their husbands or wives, sons and daughters,\nneighbors and friends, the wicked and the good, I do not mean that\nthey are to harden their hearts and become indifferent to their\nwelfare. God forbid! No student of the human heart, of human life, and\nof the Bible can long ignore the need of a caution upon these lines.\nThe sacred writer knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the\nhuman heart as deceitful and desperately wicked. It is deceitful or it\nwould never blind people as it does to the inutility, the futility of\nmuch of their goodness. A goodness that is wrapped up in a napkin, and\nlies unused for the benefit of others, rots and becomes a putrid mass\nof corruption. It can only remain good by being unselfishly used for\nthe good of others, and to prove that the human heart is desperately\nwicked one needs only to look at the suffering endured by mankind\nunnecessarily--suffering that organized society ought to prevent and\nrender impossible.\n\nThe parable of the lost sheep was written to give us this needful\nlesson. The shepherd, when he found one of his sheep gone, did not sit\ndown and wring his hands in foolish and useless worry as to what would\nhappen to the sheep, the dangers that would beset it, the thorns,\nthe precipices, the wolves. Nor did he count over the times he had\ncautioned the sheep not to get away from its fellows. Granted that\nit was conceited, self-willed, refused to listen to counsel,\ndisobedient--the main fact in the mind of the shepherd was that it was\nlost, unprotected, in danger, afraid, cold, hungry, longing for the\nsheepfold, the companionship of its fellows and the guardianship of\nthe shepherd. Hence, he went out eagerly and sympathetically, and\nsearched until he found it and brought it back to shelter.\n\nThis, then, should be the spirit of those who have needed my\ncaution and advice to quit their worrying about their loved ones and\nothers--Do not worry, but do not, under any consideration, become\nhard-hearted, careless, or indifferent. Better by far preserve your\ninterest and the human tenderness that leads you to the useless and\nneedless expenditure of energy and sympathy in worry than that you\nshould let your loved ones suffer without any care, thought, or\nendeavor on their behalf. But do not let it be a sympathy that leads\nto worry. Let it be helpful, stimulating, directive, energizing in the\ngood. Overcome evil with good. Resist evil and it will flee from you.\nSo long as those you love are absorbed in the things that in the past\nhave led you to worry over them, be tender and sympathetic with them,\nsurround them with your holy and helpful love.\n\nJesus was tender and compassionate with all who were sick or diseased\nin body or mind. He was never angry with any, save the proud and\nself-righteous Pharisees. He tenderly forgave the adulterous woman,\njustified the publican and never lectured or rebuked those who came to\nhave their bodily and mental infirmities removed by him. Let us then\nbe tender with the erring and the sinful, rather than censorious,\nand full of rebuke. Is it not the better way to point out the\nright--overcome the evil with the good, and thus bind our erring\nloved ones more firmly to ourselves. Surely our own errors, failures,\nweaknesses and sins ought to have taught us this lesson.\n\nIn the bedroom of a friend where I recently slept, was a card on\nwhich was illuminated these words, which bear particularly upon this\nsubject:\n\n    The life that has not known and accepted sorrow is strangely\n    crude and untaught; it can neither help nor teach, for it has\n    never learned. The life that has spurned the lesson of sorrow,\n    or failed to read it aright, is cold and hard. But the life\n    that has been disciplined by sorrow is courageous and full of\n    holy and gentle love.\n\nAnd it is this holy, gentle, and courageous love that we need to\nexercise every day towards those who require it, rather than the\nworry that frets still more, irritates, and widens the gulf already\nexistent. So, reader, don't worry, but help, sympathetically and\nlovingly, and above all, don't become indifferent, hard-hearted and\nselfish.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nWORRIES AND HOBBIES\n\n\nThough these words are much alike in sound they have no sympathy\none with another. Put them in active operation and they rush at each\nother's throats far worse than Allies and Germans are now fighting.\nThey strive for a death grip, and as soon as one gets hold he hangs on\nto the end--if he can. Yet, as in all conflicts, the right is sure to\nwin in an equal combat, the right of the hobby is absolutely certain\nto win over the wrong of the worry.\n\nWebster defines a hobby as: \"A subject or plan which one is constantly\nsetting off,\" or \"a favorite and ever recurring theme of discourse,\nthought, or effort,\" but the editor of _The Century Dictionary_ has\na better definition, more in accord with modern thought, viz., \"That\nwhich a person persistently pursues or dwells upon with zeal or\ndelight, as if riding a horse.\"\n\nAre you cursed by the demon of worry? Has he got a death grip on your\nthroat? Do you want to be freed from his throttling assaults? If\nso, get a hobby, the more mentally occupying the better, and ride it\nearnestly, sincerely, furiously. Let it be what it will, it will\nfar more than pay in the end, when you find yourself free from the\nnightmare of worry that has so relentlessly ridden you for so long.\nCollect bugs, old china, Indian baskets, Indian blankets, pipes,\ndomestic implements, war paraphanalia, photographs, butterflies; make\nan herbarium of the flowers of your State; collect postage stamps, old\nbooks, first editions; go in for extra-illustrating books; pick up and\nclassify all the stray phrases you hear--do anything that will occupy\nyour mind to the exclusion of worry.\n\nAnd let me here add a thought--the more unselfish you can make your\nhobby the better it will be for you. Perhaps I can put it even in a\nbetter way yet: The less your hobby is entered into with the purely\npersonal purpose of pleasing yourself, and the more actively you can\nmake it beneficial, helpful, joy-giving to others, the more potent\nfor good it will be in aiding you to get rid of your worries. He who\nblesses another is thrice blessed, for he not only blesses himself by\nthe act, but brings upon himself the blessing of the recipient and of\nAlmighty God, with the oft-added blessing of those who learn of\nthe good deed and breathe a prayer of commendation for him. In San\nFrancisco there is a newspaper man who writes in a quaint, peculiar,\nsimple, yet subtle fashion, who signs himself \"K.C.B.\" During the\nPanama-Pacific Exposition one of his hobbies was to plan to take there\nall the poor youngsters of the streets, the newsboys, the little ones\nin hospitals, the incurables, the down-and-outers of the work-house\nand poor-farm, and finally, the almost forgotten old men and women of\nthe almshouses.\n\nI saw strong men weep with deep emotion at the procession of\nautomobiles conveying the happy though generally silent throngs on\none of these occasions, and \"K.C.B.\" must have felt the showers of\nblessings that were sent in his direction from those who saw and\nappreciated his beautiful helpfulness.\n\nThere is nothing to hinder any man, woman, youth or maiden from doing\nexactly the same kind of thing, with the same spirit, and bringing\na few hours of happiness to the needy, thus driving worry out of the\nmind, putting it _hors de combat_, so that it need never again rise\nfrom the field.\n\nEvery blind asylum, children's hospital, slum, old lady's home, old\nman's home, almshouse, poor-farm, work-house, insane asylum, prison,\nand a thousand other centers where the poor, needy, sick and afflicted\ngather, has its lonely hearts that long for cherishing, aching brows\nthat need to be soothed, pain to be alleviated; and there is no\npanacea so potent in removing the worries of our own life as to engage\nearnestly in removing the positive and active ills of others.\n\nPeople occasionally ask me if I have any hobby that has helped me ward\noff the attacks of worry. I do not believe I have ever answered this\nquestion as fully as I might have done, so I will attempt to do so\nnow. One of my first hobbies was food reform and hygienic living. When\nI was little more than twelve years of age I became a vegetarian\nand for nine years lived the life pretty rigorously. I have always\nbelieved that simpler, plainer living than most of us indulge in, more\nopen air life, sleeping, working, living out of doors, more active,\nphysical exercise of a useful character, would be beneficial. Then I\nbecame a student of memory culture. Professor William Stokes of\nthe Royal Polytechnic Institution became my friend, and for years\nI studied his system of Mnemonics, or as it was generally termed\n\"Artificial Memory.\" Then I taught it for a number of years, and\nevolved from it certain fundamental principles upon which I have\nlargely based the cultivation of my own memory and mentality, and for\nwhich I can never be sufficiently thankful. Then I desired to be a\npublic speaker. I became a \"hobbyist\" on pronunciation, enunciation,\npurity of voice, phrasing and getting the thought of my own mind in\nthe best and quickest possible way into the minds of others. For years\nI kept a small book in which I jotted down every word, its derivation\nand full meaning with which I was not familiar. I studied clear\nenunciation by the hour; indeed as I walked through the streets I\nrecited to myself, aloud, so that I could hear my own enunciation,\nsuch poems as Southey's _Cataract of Lodore_, where almost every word\nterminates in \"ing.\" For I had heard many great English and American\nspeakers whose failure to pronounce this terminal \"ing\" in such\nwords as coming, going, etc., used to distress me considerably. Other\nexercises were the catches, such as \"Peter Piper picks a peck of\npickled peppers,\" or \"Selina Seamstich stitches seven seams slowly,\nsurely, serenely and slovenly,\" or \"Around a rugged rock a ragged\nrascal ran a rural race.\" Then, too, Professor Stokes had composed a\nwonderful yarn about the memory, entitled \"My M-made memory medley,\nmentioning memory's most marvelous manifestations.\" This took up as\nmuch as three or four pages of this book, every word beginning with m.\nIt was a marvelous exercise for lingual development. He also had\n\"The Far-Famed Fairy Tale of Fenella,\" and these were constantly\nand continuously recited, with scrupulous care as to enunciation. My\nfather was an old-time conductor of choral and oratorio societies, and\nwas the leader of a large choir. I had a good alto voice and under his\nwise dicipline it was cultivated, and I was a certificated reader of\nmusic at sight before I was ten years old. Then I taught myself\nto play the organ, and before I was twenty I was the organist and\nchoir-master of one of the largest Congregational churches of my\nnative town, having often helped my father in the past years to drill\nand conduct oratorios such as _The Messiah, Elijah, The Creation_,\netc. When I began to speak in public the only special instruction I\nhad for the cultivation of the voice was a few words from my father to\nthis effect: Stand before the looking-glass and insist that your face\nappear pleasant and agreeable. Speak the sentence you wish to hear.\nListen to your own voice, you can tell as well as anyone else whether\nits sound is nasal, harsh, raucous, disagreeable, affected, or in\nany way displeasing or unnatural. Insist upon a pure, clear, natural,\npleasing tone, and that's all there is to it. When you appear before\nan audience speak to the persons at the further end of the hall and\nif they can hear you don't worry about anyone else. Later, when I had\nbecome fairly launched as a public speaker, he came to visit me, and\nwhen I appeared on my platform that night I found scattered around on\nthe floor, where none could see them but myself, several placards upon\nwhich he had printed in easily-read capitals: Don't shout--keep cool.\nAvoid ranting. Make each point clear. Don't ramble, etc.\n\nWhen I was about fourteen I took up phonography, or stenography as\nit is now known. This was an aid in reporting speeches, making notes,\netc., but one of its greatest helps was in the matter of analysing the\nsounds of words thus aiding me in their clear enunciation.\n\nAt this time I was also a Sunday school teacher, and at sixteen years\nof age, a local preacher in the Methodist church. This led to my\nbecoming an active minister of that denomination after I came to the\nUnited States, and for seven years I was as active as I knew how to\nbe in the discharge of this work. In my desire to make my preaching\neffective and helpful I studied unweariedly and took up astronomy,\nbuying a three inch telescope, and soon became elected to Fellowship\nin the Royal Astronomical Society of England. Then I took up\nmicroscopy, buying the fine microscope from Dr. Dallinger, President\nof the Royal Microscopical Society, with which he had done his great\nwork on bacilli--and which, by-the-way, was later stolen from me--and\nI was speedily elected a Fellow of that distinguished Society. A\nlittle later Joseph Le Conte, the beloved geologist of the California\nState University, took me under his wing, and set me to work solving\nproblems in geology, and I was elected, in due time, a Fellow of the\nGeological Society of England, a society honored by the counsels of\nsuch men as Tyndall, Murchison, Lyell, and all the great geologists of\nthe English speaking world.\n\nJust before I left the ministry, in 1889, I took up, with a great deal\nof zeal, the study of the poet Browning. I had already yielded to the\ncharm of Ruskin--whom I personally knew--and Carlyle, but Browning\nopened up a new world of elevated thought to me, in which I am still\na happy dweller. In seeking a new vocation I naturally gravitated\ntowards several lines of thought and study, all of which have\ninfluenced materially my later life, and all of which I pursued with\nthe devotion accorded only to hobbies. These were I: A deeper study\nof Nature, in her larger and manifestations, as the Grand Canyon of\nArizona, the Petrified Forest, the Yosemite Valley, the Big Trees, the\nHigh Sierras, (with their snow-clad summits, glaciers, lakes, canyons,\nforests, flora and fauna), the Colorado and Mohave Deserts, the\nColorado River, the Painted Desert, and the many regions upon which I\nhave written books. II: The social conditions of the submerged tenth,\nwhich led to my writing of a book on _The Dark Places of Chicago_\nwhich was the stimulating cause of W.T. Stead's soul-stirring book _If\nChrist Came to Chicago_. Here was and is the secret of my interest in\nall problems dealing with social unrest, the treatment of the poor\nand sinful, etc., for I was Chaplain for two years of two homes for\nunfortunate women and girls. III. A deeper study of the Indians, in\nwhom I had always been interested, and which has led to my several\nbooks on the Indians themselves, their Basketry, Blanketry, etc. IV. A\nmore detailed study of the literature of California and the West, and\nalso, V. A more comprehensive study of the development of California\nand other western states, in order that I might lecture more\nacceptably upon these facinating themes.\n\nHere, then, are some of the hobbies that have made, and are making, my\nlife what it is. I leave it to my readers to determine which has\nbeen the better--to spend my hours, days, weeks, months and years in\ngetting my livelihood and worrying, or in providing for my family\nand myself, and spending all the spare time I had upon these many and\nvaried hobbies, some of which have developed into my life-work. And\nI sincerely hope I shall be absolved from any charge of either\nself-glorification or egotism in this recital of personal experiences.\nAt the time I was passing through them I had no idea of their great\nvalue. They were the things to which something within me bade me flee\nto find refuge from the worries that were destroying me, and it is\nbecause of their triumphant success that I now recount them, in the\nfervent desire that they may bring hope to despondent souls, give\ncourage to those who are now wavering, uncertain and pessimistic, and\nthus rid them of the demons of fret and worry.\n\nNow that I have come to my final words where all my final admonitions\nshould be placed, I find I have little left to say, I have said it\nall, reader, in the chapters you have read (or skipped.) Indeed I have\nnot so much cared to preach to you myself, as to encourage, incite\nyou to do your own preaching. This is, by far, the most effective,\npermanent and lasting. Improvement can come only from within. A seed\nof desire may be sown by an outsider, but it must grow in the soil of\nyour soul, be harbored, sheltered, cared for, and finally beloved by\nyour own very self, before it will flower into new life _for you_.\nThat you may possess this new life--a life of work, of achievement, of\nusefulness to others--is my earnest desire, and this can come only to\nits fullest fruition in those who have learned to QUIT WORRYING.","title":"Quit Your Worrying!","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":50824}