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diff --git a/old/12813.txt b/old/12813.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be8386b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12813.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5812 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Quit Your Worrying!, by George Wharton James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Quit Your Worrying! + +Author: George Wharton James + +Release Date: July 4, 2004 [EBook #12813] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUIT YOUR WORRYING! *** + + + + +Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +QUIT YOUR WORRYING! + +BY + +GEORGE WHARTON JAMES + +AUTHOR OF + +"Living the Radiant Life," "What the White Race may learn from +the Indian," "The story of Scraggles," "California, Romantic and +Beautiful," "Our American Wonderlands," etc. etc. + +PASADENA, CALIF. + + +1916 + + +TO THOSE + +who are standing on the banks of worry before the ocean of God's love +I cry aloud + +"COME ON IN--THE WATER'S FINE!" + + + + +CONTENTS + +FOREWORD + + I THE CURSE OF WORRY + II OURS IS THE AGE OF WORRY + III NERVOUS PROSTRATION AND WORRY + IV HOLY WRIT, THE SAGES AND WORRY + V THE NEEDLESSNESS AND USELESSNESS OF WORRY + VI THE SELFISHNESS OF WORRY + VII CAUSES OF WORRY + VIII PROTEAN FORMS OF WORRY + IX HEALTH WORRIES + X THE WORRIES OF PARENTS + XI MARITAL WORRIES + XII THE WORRY OF THE SQUIRREL CAGE + XIII RELIGIOUS WORRIES AND WORRIERS + XIV AMBITION AND WORRY + XV ENVY AND WORRY + XVI DISCONTENT AND WORRY + XVII COWARDICE AND WORRY +XVIII WORRY ABOUT MANNERS AND SPEECH + XIX THE WORRIES OF JEALOUSY + XX THE WORRIES OF SUSPICION + XXI THE WORRIES OF IMPATIENCE + XXII THE WORRIES OF ANTICIPATION +XXIII HOW OUR WORRY AFFECTS OTHERS + XXIV WORRY VERSUS INDIFFERENCE + XXV WORRIES AND HOBBIES + + + + +JUST BE GLAD + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + _O heart of mine, we shouldn't worry so, + What we have missed of calm we couldn't have, you know!_ + + _What we've met of stormy pain, + And of sorrow's driving rain, + We can better meet again, + If it blow._ + + _We have erred in that dark hour, we have known, + When the tear fell with the shower, all alone._ + + _Were not shine and shower blent + As the gracious Master meant? + Let us temper our content + With His own._ + + _For we know not every morrow + Can be sad; + So forgetting all the sorrow + We have had, + Let us fold away our fears, + And put by our foolish tears, + And through all the coming years, + Just be glad._ + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Between twenty and thirty years ago, I became involved in a series of +occurrences and conditions of so painful and distressing a character +that for over six months I was unable to sleep more than one or two +hours out of the twenty-four. In common parlance I was "worrying +myself to death," when, mercifully, a total collapse of mind and body +came. My physicians used the polite euphemism of "cerebral congestion" +to describe my state which, in reality, was one of temporary insanity, +and it seemed almost hopeless that I should ever recover my health +and poise. For several months I hovered between life and death, and my +brain between reason and unreason. + +In due time, however, both health and mental poise came back in +reasonable measure, and I asked myself what would be the result if I +returned to the condition of worry that culminated in the disaster. +This question and my endeavors at its solution led to the gaining of a +degree of philosophy which materially changed my attitude toward life. +Though some of the chief causes of my past worry were removed there +were still enough adverse and untoward circumstances surrounding me +to give me cause for worry, if I allowed myself to yield to it, so I +concluded that my mind must positively and absolutely be prohibited +from dwelling upon those things that seemed justification for worry. +And I determined to set before me the ideal of a life without worry. + +How was it to be brought about? + +At every fresh attack of the harassing demon I rebuked myself with the +stern command, "Quit your Worrying." Little by little I succeeded +in obeying my own orders. A measurable degree of serenity has since +blessed my life. It has been no freer than other men's lives from the +ordinary--and a few extraordinary--causes of worry, but I have learned +the lesson. I have _Quit Worrying_. To help others to attain the same +desirable and happy condition has been my aim in these pages. + +It was with set purpose that I chose this title. I might have selected +"Don't Worry." But I knew that would fail to convey my principal +thought to the casual observer of the title. People _will_ worry, they +_do_ worry. What they want to know and need to learn is how to +quit worrying. This I have attempted herein to show, with the full +knowledge, however, that no one person's recipe can infallibly be used +by any other person--so that, in reality, all I have tried to do is +to set forth the means I have followed to teach myself the delightful +lesson of serenity, of freedom from worry, and thereby to suggest +to receptive minds a way by which they may possibly attain the same +desirable end. + +It was the learned and wise Dr. Johnson who wrote: + + He may be justly numbered amongst the benefactors of mankind, + who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, + that may easily be impressed on the memory, and taught by + frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind. + +I have no desire to claim as original the title used for these +observations, but I do covet the joy of knowing that I have so +impressed it upon the memory of thousands that by its constant +recurrence it will aid in banishing the monster, worry. + +It is almost unavoidable that, in a practical treatise of this nature, +there should be some repetition, both in description of worries and +the remedies suggested. To the critical reader, however, let me say: +Do not worry about this, for I am far more concerned to get my thought +into the heads and hearts of my readers than I am to be esteemed a +great writer. Let me help but one troubled soul to quit worrying and I +will forego all the honors of the ages that might have come to me had +I been an essayist of power. And I have repeated purposely, for I +know that some thoughts have to knock again and again, ere they are +admitted to the places where they are the most needed. + +I have written strongly; perhaps some will think too strongly. These, +however, must remember that I have written advisedly. I have been +considering the subject for half or three parts of a life-time. I +have studied men and women; carefully watched their lives; talked with +them, and seen the lines worry has engraved on their faces. I have +seen and felt the misery caused by their unnecessary worries. I have +sat by the bedsides of people made chronic invalids by worry, and I +have stood in the cells of maniacs driven insane by worry. Hence I +hate it in all its forms, and have expressed myself only as the facts +have justified. + +Wherein I have sought to show how one might _Quit his Worrying_, these +pages presuppose an earnest desire, a sincere purpose, on the part +of the reader to attain that desirable end. There is no universal +medicine which one can drink in six doses and thus be cured of his +disease. I do not offer my book as a mental cure-all, or nostrum that, +if swallowed whole, will cure in five days or ten. As I have tried +to show, I conceive worry to be unnatural and totally unnecessary, +because of its practical denial of what ought to be, and I believe may +be, the fundamental basis of a man's life, viz., his perfect, abiding +assurance in the fatherly love of God. As little Pippa sang: + + God's in his heaven, + All's right with the world. + +The only way, therefore, to lose our sense of worry is to get back to +naturalness, to God, and learn the peace, joy, happiness, serenity, +that come with practical trust in Him. With some people this change +may come instantly; with others, more slowly. Personally I have had +to learn slowly, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, +there a little." And I would caution my readers not to expect too +much all at once. But I am fully convinced that as faith, trust, and +naturalness grow, worry will cease, will slough off, like the dead +skin of the serpent, and leave those once bound by it free from its +malign influence. Who cannot see and feel that such a consummation is +devoutly to be wished, worth working and earnestly striving for? + +If I help a few I shall be more than repaid, if many, my heart will +rejoice. + +[Signed: George Wharton James] + +Pasadena, Calif. _February_, 1916. + + + + +QUIT YOUR WORRYING! + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CURSE OF WORRY + + +Of how many persons can it truthfully be said they never worry, they +are perfectly happy, contented, serene? It would be interesting if +each of my readers were to recall his acquaintances and friends, think +over their condition in this regard, and then report to me the result. +What a budget of worried persons I should have to catalogue, and alas, +I am afraid, how few of the serene would there be named. When John +Burroughs wrote his immortal poem, _Waiting_, he struck a deeper note +than he dreamed of, and the reason it made so tremendous an impression +upon the English-speaking world was that it was a new note to them. It +opened up a vision they had not before contemplated. Let me quote it +here in full: + + Serene I fold my hands and wait, + Nor care for wind, or tide or sea; + I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, + For lo! my own shall come to me. + + I stay my haste, I make delays, + For what avails this eager pace? + I stand amid the eternal ways, + And what is mine shall know my face. + + Asleep, awake, by night or day, + The friends I seek are seeking me, + No wind can drive my bark astray, + Nor change the tide of destiny. + + What matter if I stand alone? + I wait with joy the coming years; + My heart shall reap where it has sown, + And garner up its fruit of tears. + + The waters know their own and draw + The brook that springs in yonder height, + So flows the good with equal law + Unto the soul of pure delight. + + The stars come nightly to the sky; + The tidal wave unto the sea; + Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high + Can keep my own away from me. + +I have been wonderfully struck by the fact that in studying the +Upanishads, and other sacred books of the East, there is practically +no reference to the kind of worry that is the bane and curse of our +Occidental world. In conversation with the learned men of the Orient +I find this same delightful fact. Indeed they have no word in their +languages to express our idea of fretful worry. Worry is a purely +Western product, the outgrowth of our materialism, our eager striving +after place and position, power and wealth, our determination to be +housed, clothed, and jeweled as well as our neighbors, and a little +better if possible; in fact, it comes from our failure to know that +life is spiritual not material; that all these outward things are the +mere "passing show," the tinsel, the gawds, the tissue-paper, the blue +and red lights of the theater, the painted scenery, the mock heroes +and heroines of the stage, rather than the real settings of the real +life of real men and women. What does the inventor, who knows that his +invention will help his fellows, care about the newest dance, or the +latest style in ties, gloves or shoes; what does the woman whose heart +and brain are completely engaged in relieving suffering care if she is +not familiar with the latest novel, or the latest fashions in flounced +pantalettes? Life is real, life is earnest, and this does not mean +unduly solemn and somber, but that it deals with the real things +rather than the paper-flower shows of the stage and the imaginary +things of so-called society. + +It is the fashion of our active, aggressive, material, Occidental +civilization to sneer and scoff at the quiet, passive, and less +material civilization of the Orient. We despise--that is, the +unthinking majority do--the studious, contemplative Oriental. We +believe in being "up and doing." But in this one particular of worry +we have much to learn from the Oriental. If happiness and a large +content be a laudable aim of life how far are we--the occidental +world--succeeding in attaining it? Few there be who are content, and, +as I have already suggested few there be who are free from worry. On +the other hand while active happiness may be somewhat scarce in +India, a large content is not uncommon, and worry, as we Westerners +understand it, is almost unknown. Hence we need to find the happy mean +between the material activity of our own civilization, and the mental +passivity of that of the Orientals. Therein will be found the calm +serenity of an active mind, the reasonable acceptance of things as +they are because we know they are good, the restfulness that comes +from the assurance that "all things work together for _Good_ to them +that love God." + +That worry is a curse no intelligent observer of life will deny. It +has hindered millions from progressing, and never benefited a soul. It +occupies the mind with that which is injurious and thus keeps out +the things that might benefit and bless. It is an active and real +manifestation of the fable of the man who placed the frozen asp in his +bosom. As he warmed it back to life the reptile turned and fatally bit +his benefactor. Worry is as a dangerous, injurious book, the reading +of which not only takes up the time that might have been spent in +reading a good, instructive, and helpful book, but, at the same time, +poisons the mind of the reader, corrupts his soul with evil images, +and sets his feet on the pathway to destruction. + +Why is it that creatures endowed with reason distress themselves and +everyone around them by worrying? It might seem reasonable for the +wild creatures of the wood--animals without reason--to worry as to how +they should secure their food, and live safely with wilder animals +and men seeking their blood and hunting them; but that men and women, +endued with the power of thought, capable of seeing the why and +wherefore of things, should worry, is one of the strange and peculiar +evidences that our so-called civilization is not all that it ought to +be. The wild Indian of the desert, forest, or canyon seldom, if ever, +worries. He is too great a natural philosopher to be engaged in so +foolish and unnecessary a business. He has a better practical system +of life than has his white and civilized (!) brother who worries, for +he says: Change what can be changed; bear the unchangeable without +a murmur. With this philosophy he braves the wind and the rain, the +sand, and the storm, the extremes of heat and cold, the plethora of a +good harvest or the famine of a drought. If he complains it is within +himself; and if he whines and whimpers no one ever hears him. His +face may become a little more stern under the higher pressure; he may +tighten his waist belt a hole or two to stifle the complaints of his +empty stomach, but his voice loses no note of its cheeriness and his +smile none of its sweet serenity. + +Why should the rude and brutal (!) savage be thus, while the cultured, +educated, refined man and woman of civilization worry wrinkles into +their faces, gray hairs upon their heads, querelousness into their +voices and bitterness into their hearts? + +When we use the word "worry" what do we mean? The word comes from the +old Saxon, and was in imitation of the sound caused by the choking or +strangling of an animal when seized by the throat by another animal. +We still refer to the "worrying" of sheep by dogs--the seizing by the +throat with the teeth; killing or badly injuring by repeated biting, +shaking, tearing, etc. From this original meaning the word has +enlarged until now it means to tease, to trouble, to harass with +importunity or with care or anxiety. In other words it is _undue_ +care, _needless_ anxiety, _unnecessary_ brooding, _fretting_ thought. + +What a wonderful picture the original source of the word suggests of +the latter-day meaning. Worry takes our manhood, womanhood, our high +ambitions, our laudable endeavors, our daily lives, _by the throat_, +and strangles, chokes, bites, tears, shakes them, hanging on like a +wolf, a weasel, or a bull-dog, sucking out our life-blood, draining +our energies, our hopes, our aims, our noble desires, and leaving us +torn, empty, shaken, useless, bloodless, hopeless, and despairing. It +is the nightmare of life that rides us to discomfort, wretchedness, +despair, and to that death-in-life that is no life at all. It is the +vampire that sucks out the good of us and leaves us like the rind of +a squeezed-out orange; it is the cooking-process that extracts and +wastes all the nutritious juices of the meat and leaves nothing but +the useless and tasteless fibre. + +Worry is a worse thief than the burglar or highwayman. It goes beyond +the train-wrecker or the vile wretch who used to lure sailing vessels +upon a treacherous shore, in its relentless heartlessness. Once it +begins to control it never releases its hold unless its victim wakes +up to the sure ruin that awaits him and frees himself from its bondage +by making a great, continuous, and successful fight. + +It steals the joy of married life, of fatherhood and motherhood; it +destroys social life, club life, business life, and religious life. +It robs a man of friendships and makes his days long, gloomy periods, +instead of rapidly-passing epochs of joy and happiness. It throws +around its victim a chilling atmosphere as does the iceberg, or +the snow bank; it exhales the mists and fogs of wretchedness and +misunderstanding; it chills family happiness, checks friendly +intercourse, and renders the business occupations of life curses +instead of blessings. + +Worry manifests itself in a variety of ways. It is protean in its +versatility. It can be physical or mental. The hypochondriac conceives +that everything is going to the "demnition bow-wows." Nothing can +reassure him. He sees in every article of diet a hidden fiend of +dyspepsia; in every drink a demon of torture. Every man he meets is a +scoundrel, and every woman a leech. Children are growing worse +daily, and society is "rotten." The Church is organized for the mere +fattening of a raft of preachers and parsons who preach what they +don't believe and never try to practice. Lawyers and judges are all +dishonest swindlers caring nothing for honor and justice and seeking +only their fees; physicians and surgeons are pitiless wretches who +scare their patients in order to extort money from them; men in office +are waiting, lurking, hunting for chances to graft, eager to steal +from their constituents at every opportunity. He expects every thing, +every animal, every man, every woman to get the best of him--and, as a +rule, he is not disappointed. For we can nearly always be accommodated +in life and get that for which we look. + +We are told that all these imaginary ills come from physical causes. +The hypochondrium is supposed to be affected, and as it is located +under the "short ribs," the hypochondriac continuously suffers from +that awful "sinking at the pit of the stomach" that makes him feel +as if the bottom had dropped out of life itself. He can neither eat, +digest his food, walk, sit, rest, work, take pleasure, exercise, or +sleep. His body is the victim of innumerable ills. His tongue, his +lips, his mouth are dry and parched, his throat full of slime and +phlegm, his stomach painful, his bowels full of gas, and he regards +himself as cursed of God--a walking receptacle of woe. To physician, +wife, husband, children, employer, employee, pastor, and friend alike +the hypochondriac is a pest, a nuisance, a chill and almost a curse, +and, poor creature, these facts do not take away or lessen our +sympathy for him, for, though most of his ills are imaginary, he +suffers more than do those who come in contact with him. + +Then there is the neurasthenic--the mentally collapsed whose collapse +invariably comes from too great tension or worry. I know several +housewives who became neurasthenic by too great anxiety to keep their +houses spotless. Not a speck of dust must be anywhere. The slightest +appearance of inattention or carelessness in this matter was a great +source of worry, and they worried lest the maid fail to do her duty. + +I know another housewife who is so dainty and refined that, though her +husband's income is strained almost to the breaking point, she must +have everything in the house so dainty and fragile that no ordinary +servant can be trusted to care for the furniture, wash the dishes, +polish the floors, etc., and the result is she is almost a confirmed +neurasthenic because, in the first place, she worries over her +dainty things, and, secondly, exhausts herself in caring for these +unnecessarily fragile household equipments. + +Every neurasthenic is a confirmed worrier. He ever sits on the "stool +of repentance," clothing himself in sackcloth and ashes for what he +has done or not done. He cries aloud--by his acts--every five minutes +or so: "We have done those things which we ought not to have done and +have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and there +is no health in us." Everything past is regretted, everything present +is in doubt, and nothing but anxieties and uncertainties meet +the future. If he holds a position of responsibility he asks his +subordinates or associates to perform certain services and then +"worries himself to death," watching to see that they "do it right," +or afraid lest they forget to do it at all. He wakes up from a sound +sleep in dread lest he forgot to lock the door, turn out the electric +light in the hall, or put out the gas. He becomes the victim of +uncertainty and indecision. He fears lest he decide wrongly, he +worries that he hasn't yet decided, and yet having thoroughly argued a +matter out and come to a reasonable conclusion, allows his worries to +unsettle him and is forever questioning his decision and going back to +revise and rerevise it. Whatever he does or doesn't do he regrets and +wishes he had done the converse. + +Husbands are worried about their wives; wives about their husbands; +parents about their children; children about their parents. Farmers +are worried over their crops; speculators over their gamblings; +investors over their investments. Teachers are worried over their +pupils, and pupils over their lessons, their grades, and their +promotions. Statesmen (!) are worried over their constituents, and the +latter are generally worried by their representatives. People who have +schemes to further--legitimate or otherwise--are worried when they +are retarded, and competitors are worried if they are not. Pastors are +worried over their congregations,--occasionally about their salaries, +very often about their large families, and now and again about their +fitness for their holy office,--and there are few congregations that, +at one time or another, are not worried _by_, as well as _about_, +their pastors. The miner is worried when he sees his ledge "petering +out," or finds the ore failing to assay its usual value. The editor +is worried lest his reporters fail to bring in the news, and often +worried when it is brought in to know whether it is accurate or +not. The chemist worries over his experiments, and the inventor that +certain things needful will persist in eluding him. The man who has +to rent a house, worries when rent day approaches; and many who own +houses worry at the same time. Some owners, indeed, worry because +there is no rent day, they have no tenants, their houses are idle. +Others worry because their tenants are not to their liking, are +destructive, careless, or neglect the flowers and the lawn, or allow +the children to batter the furniture, walk in hob nails over the +hardwood floors, or scratch the paint off the walls. Men in high +position worry lest their superiors are not as fully appreciative +of their efforts as they should be, and they in turn worry their +subordinates lest they forget that they are subordinate. + +Mistresses worry about their maids, and maids about their mistresses. +Some of the former worry because they have to go into their +kitchens, others because they are not allowed to go. Some mistresses +deliberately worry their servants, and others are worried because +their servants insist upon doing the worrying. Many a wife is worried +because of her husband's typewriter, and many a typewriter is worried +because her employer has a wife. Some typewriters are worried because +they are not made into wives, and many a one who is a wife wishes she +were free again to become a typewriter. + +Thousands of girls--many of them who ought yet to be wearing +short dresses and playing with dolls--worry because they have no +sweethearts, and equal thousands worry because they _do_ have them. +Many a lad worries because he has no "lassie," and many a one worries +because he has. Yesterday I rode on a street car and saw a bit of +by-play that fully illustrated this. On these particular cars there +is a seat for two alongside the front by the motorman. On this car, +chatting merrily with the handler of the lever, sat a black-eyed, +pretty-faced Latin type of brunette. That _he_ was happy was evidenced +by his good-natured laugh and the huge smile that covered his face +from ear to ear as he responded to her sallies. Just then a young +Italian came on the car, directly to the front, and seemed nettled to +see the young lady talking so freely with the motorman. He saluted her +with a frown upon his face, but evidently with familiarity. The change +in the girl's demeanor was instantaneous. Evidently she did not wish +to offend the newcomer, nor did she wish to break with the motorman. +All were ill at ease, distraught, vexed, worried. She tried to bring +the newcomer into the conversation, which he refused. The motorman +eyed him with hostility now and again, as he dared to neglect his +duty, but smiled uneasily in the face of the girl when she addressed +him with an attempt at freedom. + +Bye and bye the youth took the empty seat by the side of the girl, +and endeavored to draw her into conversation to the exclusion of the +motorman. She responded, twisting her body and face towards him, +so that her sweet and ingratiating smiles could not be seen by the +motorman. Then, she reversed the process and gave a few fleeting +smiles to the grim-looking motorman. It was as clear a case of + + How happy could I be with either, + Were t'other dear charmer away, + +as one could well see. + +Just then the car came to a transfer point. The girl had a transfer +and left, smiling sweetly, but separately, in turn, to the motorman +and her young Italian friend. The latter watched her go. Then a new +look came over his face, which I wondered at. It was soon explained. +The transfer point was also a division point for this car. The +motorman and conductor were changed, and the moment the new crew came, +our motorman jumped from his own car, ran to the one the brunette had +taken, and swung himself on, as it crossed at right angles over +the track we were to take. Rising to his feet the youth watched the +passing car, with keenest interest until it was out of sight, clearly +revealing the jealousy, worry, and unrest he felt. + +In another chapter I have dealt more fully with the subject of +the worries of jealousy. They are demons of unrest and distress, +destroying the very vitals with their incessant gnawing. + +Too great emphasis cannot be placed upon the physical ills that come +from worry. The body unconsciously reflects our mental states. A +fretful and worrying mother should never be allowed to suckle her +child, for she directly injures it by the poison secreted in her milk +by the disturbances caused in her body by the worry of her mind. +Among the many wonderfully good things said in his lifetime Henry Ward +Beecher never said a wiser and truer thing than that "it is not the +revolution which destroys the machinery, but the friction." Worry is +the friction that shatters the machine. Work, to the healthy body and +serene mind, is a joy, a blessing, a health-giving exercise, but to +the worried is a burden, a curse and a destroyer. + +Go where you will, when you will, how you will, and you will find most +people worrying to a greater or lesser extent. Indeed so full has our +Western world become of worry that a harsh and complaining note is far +more prevalent than we are willing to believe, which is expressed in +a rude motto to be found hung on many an office, bedroom, library, +study, and laboratory wall which reads: + + _Life is one Damn + Thing after Another_ + +[Note: this is outlined in a block.] + +Those gifted with a sense of humor laugh at the motto; the very +serious frown at it and reprobate its apparent profanity, those who +see no humor in anything regard it with gloom, the careless with +assumed indifference, but in the minds of all, more or less latent or +subconscious, there is a recognition that there is "an awful lot of +truth in it." + +Hence it will be seen that worry is by no means confined to the poor. +The well-to-do, the prosperous, and the rich, indeed, have far more to +worry about than the poor, and for one victim who suffers keenly from +worry among the poor, ten can be found among the rich who are its +abject victims. + +It is worry that paints the lines of care on foreheads and cheeks that +should be smooth and beautiful; worry bows the shoulders, brings out +scowls and frowns where smiles and sweet greetings should exist. Worry +is the twister, the dwarfer, the poisoner, the murderer of joy, of +peace, of work, of happiness; the strangler, the burglar of life; the +phantom, the vampire, the ghost that scares, terrifies, fills with +dread. Yet he is a liar and a scoundrel, a villain and a coward, who +will turn and flee if fearlessly and courageously met and defied. +Instead of pampering and petting him, humoring and conciliating him, +meet him on his own ground. Defy him to do his worst. Flaunt him, +laugh at his threats, sneer and scoff at his pretensions, bid him do +his worst. Better be dead than under the dominion of such a tyrant. +And, my word for it, as soon as you take that attitude, he will flee +from you, nay, he will disappear as the mists fade away in the heat of +the noonday sum. + +Worry, however, is not only an effect. It is also a cause. Worry +causes worry. It breeds more rapidly than do flies. The more one +worries the more he learns to worry. Begin to worry over one thing +and soon you are worrying about twenty. And the infernal curse is not +content with breeding worries of its own kind. It is as if it were a +parent gifted with the power of breeding a score, a hundred different +kinds of progeny at one birth, each more hideous, repulsive, and +fearful than the other. There is no palliation, temporization, or +parleying possible with such a monster. Death is the only way to be +released from him, and it is your death or his. His death is a duty +God requires at your hands. Why, then, waste time? Start now and kill +the foul fiend as quickly as you can. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +OURS IS THE AGE OF WORRY + + +How insulting! What a ridiculous statement! How ignorant of our +achievements! I can well imagine some of my readers saying when they +see this chapter heading. _This_, an age of worry! Why this is the age +of progress, of advancement, of uplift, of the onward march of a great +and wonderful civilization. + +Is it? + +Certainly it is! See what we have done in electricity, look at the +telephone, telegraph, wireless and now the wireless telephone. See +our advancement in mechanics,--the automobile, the new locomotives, +vessels, etc. See our conquest of the air--dirigibles, aeroplanes, +hydroplanes and the like. + +Yes! I see, and what of it? _We_ have done, _our_ advancement, +_our_ conquest, etc., etc. Yes! I see _we_ have not lessened _our_ +arrogance, _our_ empty-headed pride, _our_ boasting. _We_--Why "_we_"? + +What have you and I had to do with the new inventions in electricity +or mechanics or the conquest of the air? + +Not one single, solitary thing! The progress of the world has +been made through the efforts of a few solitary, exceptional, rare +individuals, not by the combined efforts of us all. You and I are +as common, unprogressive, uninventive, indifferent mediocrities as +we--the common people--always were. We have not contributed one iota +to all this progress, and I often question whether mud; of it comes +to us more fraught with good than evil. We claim the results without +engaging in the work. We use the 'phone and worry because Central +doesn't get us our connections immediately, when we haven't the +faintest conception of how the connection is gained, or why we are +delayed. We ride on the fast train, but chafe and worry ourselves and +everybody about us to a frazzle because we are stopped on a siding by +a semaphore of a block station which we never have observed, and would +not understand if we did. We reap but have not sowed, gather but have +not strewed, and that is ever injurious and never beneficial. Our +conceit is flattered and enlarged, our importance magnified, our +"dignity"--God save the mark!--made more impressive, and as a result, +we are more the target for the inconsequential worries of life. We +worry if we are not flattered, if our importance is not recognized +even by strangers, and our dignity not honored--in other words we +worry that we are not _kow-towed_ to, deferred to, respectfully +greeted on every hand and made to feel that civilization, progress +and advancement are materially furthered and enhanced by our mere +existence. + +Every individual with such an outlook on life is a prolific +distributer of worry germs; he, she, is a pest and a nuisance, +more disturbing to the real peace of the community than a victim +of smallpox, and one who should be isolated in a pest-house. But, +unfortunately, our myopic vision sees only the wealth, the luxury, the +spending capacity of such an individual, and that ends it--we bow down +and worship before the golden calf. + +If I had the time in these pages to discuss the history of worry, I am +assured I could show clearly to the student of history that worry is +always the product of prosperity; that while a nation is hard at work +at its making, and every citizen is engaged in arduous labor of one +kind or another for the upbuilding of his own or the national power, +worry is scarcely known. The builders of our American civilization +were too busy conquering the wilderness of New England, the prairies +of the Middle West, the savannahs and lush growths of the South, the +arid deserts of the West to have much time for worry. Such men and +women were gifted with energy, the power of initiative and executive +ability, they were forceful, daring, courageous and active, and _in +their very working_ had neither time nor thought for worry. + +But just as soon as a reasonable amount of success attended their +efforts, and they had amassed wealth their children began and +continued to worry. Not occupied with work that demands our unceasing +energy, we find ourselves occupied with trifles, worrying over our +health, our investments, our luxuries, our lap-dogs and our frivolous +occupations. Imagine the old-time pioneers of the forest, plain, +prairie and desert worrying about sitting in a draught, or taking cold +if they got wet, or wondering whether they could eat what would be set +before them at the next meal. They were out in the open, compelled to +take whatever weather came to them, rain or shine, hot or cold, sleet +or snow, and ready when the sunset hour came, to eat with relish and +appetite sauce, the rude and plain victuals placed upon the table. + +Compare the lives of that class of men with the later generation of +"capitalists." I know one who used to live at Sherry's in New York. +His apartments were as luxurious as those of a monarch; he was +not happy, however, for worry rode him from morning to night. He +absolutely spent an hour or more each day consulting the menu, or +discussing with the steward what he could have to place upon his menu, +and died long before his time, cursed with his wealth, its resultant +idleness and the trifling worries that always come to such men. Had he +been reduced to poverty, compelled to go out and work on a farm, eat +oatmeal mush or starve for breakfast, bacon and greens for dinner, +and cold pork and potatoes or starve for supper, he would be alive and +happy to-day. + +Take the fussy, nervous, irritable, worrying men and women of life, +who poke their noses into other people's affairs, retail all the +scandal, and hand on all the slander and gossip of empty and, +therefore, evil minds. They are invariably well to do and without any +work or responsibilities. They go gadding about restless and feverish +because of the empty vacuity of their lives, a prey to worry because +they have nothing else to do. If I were to put down and faithfully +report the conversations I have with such people; the fool worries +they are really distressed with; the labor, time and energy they spend +on following chimeras, will o' the wisps, mirages that beckon to them +and promise a little mental occupation,--and over which they cannot +help but worry, one could scarcely believe it. + +As Dr. Walton forcefully says in his admirable booklet: + + The present, then, is the age, and our contemporaries are the + people, that bring into prominence the little worries, that + cause the tempest in the teapot, that bring about the worship + of the intangible, and the magnification of the unessential. + If we had lived in another epoch we might have dreamt of the + eternal happiness of saving our neck, but in this one we fret + because our collar does not fit it, and because the button + that holds the collar has rolled under the bureau.[A] + +[Footnote A: _Calm Yourself_. By George Lincoln Walton, M.D., +Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, Mass.] + +I am not so foolish as to imagine for one moment that I can correct +the worrying tendency of the age, but I do want to be free from worry +myself, to show others that it is unnecessary and needless, and also, +that it is possible to live a life free from its demoralizing and +altogether injurious influences. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +NERVOUS PROSTRATION AND WORRY. + + +Nervous prostration is generally understood to mean weakness of the +nerves. It invariably comes to those who have extra strong nerves, +but who do not know how to use them properly, as well as those whose +nervous system is naturally weak and easily disorganized. Nervous +prostration is a disease of overwork, mainly mental overwork, and in +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, comes from worry. Worry is +the most senseless and insane form of mental work. It is as if a +bicycle-rider were so riding against time that, the moment after he +got off his machine to sit down to a meal he sprang up again, and +while eating were to work his arms and legs as if he were riding. +It is the slave-driver that stands over the slave and compels him to +continue his work, even though he is so exhausted that hands, arms and +legs cease to obey, and he falls asleep at his task. + +The folly, as well as the pain and distress of this cruel +slave-driving is that we hold the whip over ourselves, have trained +ourselves to do it, and have done it so long that now we seem unable +to stop. In another chapter there is fully described (in Dorothy +Canfield's vivid words) the squirrel-cage whirligig of modern society +life. Modern business life is not much better. Men compel themselves +to the endless task of amassing money without knowing _why_ they amass +it. They make money, that they may enlarge their factories, to make +more ploughs, to get more money, to enlarge their factories, to make +more ploughs, to get more money, to enlarge more factories, to make +more ploughs, and so on, _ad infinitum_. Where is the sense of it. +Such conduct has well been termed money-madness. It is an obsession, a +disease, a form of hypnotism, a mental malady. + +The tendency of the age is to drive. We drive our own children to +school; there they are driven for hours by one study after another; +even when they come home they bring lessons with them--the lovers of +study and over-conscientious because they want to do them, and the +laggards because they must, if they are to keep up with their classes. +If the parents of such children are not careful, they (the children) +soon learn to worry; they are behind-hand with their lessons; they +didn't get the highest mark yesterday; the class is going ahead of +them, etc., etc., until mental collapse comes. + +For worrying is the worst kind of mental overwork. As Dr. Edward +Livingston Hunt, of Columbia University, New York, said in a paper +read by him early in 1912, before the Public Health Education +Committee of the Medical Society of the County of New York: + + There is a form of overwork, exceedingly common and + exceedingly disastrous--one which equally accompanies great + intellectual labors and minor tasks. I allude to worry. When + we medical men speak of the workings of the brain we make + use of a term both expressive and characteristic. It is to + cerebrate. To cerebrate means to think, to reason, and to + reach conclusions; it means to concentrate and to work hard. + To think, then, is to cerebrate. To worry is to cerebrate + intensely. + + Worry is overwork of the most disastrous kind; it means to + drive the mental machinery at an unreasonable and dangerous + rate. Worry gives the brain no rest, but rather keeps the + delicate cells in constant and continuous action. Work is + wear; worry is tear. Overwork, mental strain, and worry lead + to a diminution of nerve force and to a prostration of the + vital forces and causes a degeneracy of the blood vessels of + the brain. + + Exhaustion, another name for fatigue, may show itself either + in the form of physical collapse, so that the patient lacks + resistance, and, becoming anemic and run down, falls a prey + to any and every little ailment, or in the form of mental + collapse. An exhausted brain then gives way to depression, to + fears, and to anxiety. + + The vast majority of nervous breakdowns are avoidable; they + are the result of our own excesses and of the disregard we + show toward the ordinary laws of health and hygiene; they are + the results of the tremendous demands which are made upon us + by modern life; they are the result of the strenuous life. + +From this analysis, made by an expert, it is evident that worry and +nervous prostration are but two points on the same circle. Nervous +prostration causes worry, and worry causes nervous prostration. Those +who overwork their bodies and minds--who drive themselves either with +the cares of business, the amassing of wealth, yielding to the demands +of society, the cravings of ambition, or the pursuit of pleasure, are +alike certain to suffer the results of mental overwork. + +And here let me interject what to me has become a fundamental +principle upon which invariably I rely. It will be recalled what I +have said elsewhere of _selfish_ and _unselfish_ occupations. It is +the selfish occupations that produce nerve-exhaustion. Those that +are unselfish seldom result in the disturbance of the harmony or +equilibrium of our nature--whether we regard it as physical, mental, +or spiritual. This may seem to be a trancendental statement--perhaps +it is. But I am confidently assured of its essential truth. That man +or woman who is truly engaged in an unselfish work--a work that is for +the good of others--has a right to look for, to expect and to receive +from the great All Source of strength, power and serenity all that +is needed to keep the body, mind and soul in harmony, consequently in +perfect health and free from worry. + +Hence the apparent paradox that, if you would care for yourself you +must disregard yourself in your loving care for others. + +One great reason why worry produces nervous prostration is that it +induces insomnia. + +Worry and sleeplessness are twin sisters. As one has well said: +"Refreshing sleep and vexing thoughts are deadly foes." Health and +happiness often disappear from those who fail to sleep, for sleep, +indeed, is "tired Nature's sweet restorer," as Young in his _Night +Thoughts_ termed it. Shakspere never wrote anything truer when he +said: + + Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, + The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, + Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, + Chief nourisher of life's feast. + +Or, where he spoke of it as + + Sleep that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, + Steals me awhile from mine own company. + +Even the Bible makes sleep one of the special blessings of God, for we +are told that "He giveth His beloved sleep." The sacred book contains +many references to sleeplessness and its causes. + +Undoubtedly most potent among these causes is worry. The worrier +retires to his bed at the usual hour, but his brain is busy--it is +working overtime. What is it doing? Is it thinking over things +that are to be done, and planning for the future? If so, there is a +legitimate excuse, for as soon as the plan is laid, rest will come, +and he will sleep. Is he thinking over the mistakes of the past and +sensibly and wisely taking counsel from them? If so, he will speedily +come to a decision, and then sleep will bring grateful oblivion. Is +he thinking joyful thoughts? These will bring a natural feeling of +harmony with all things, and that is conducive to speedy sleep? Is +he thinking of how he may help others? That is equally soothing to +nerves, brain and body, and brings the refreshment of forgetfulness. + +But no! the worrier has another method. He thinks the same thoughts +over and over again, without the slightest attempt to get anywhere. He +has thrashed them out before, so often that he can tell exactly what +each thought will lead to. His ideas go around in a circle like +the horse tied to the wheel. He is on a treadmill ever ascending, +tramping, up, up, up and up, and still up, but the wheel falls +down each time as far as he steps up, and after hours and hours of +unceasing, wracking, distressful mental labor, he has done absolutely +nothing, has not progressed one inch, is still in the clutch of the +same vicious treadmill. Brain weary, nerve weary, is there any wonder +that he rolls and tosses, throws over his pillow, kicks off the +clothes, groans, almost cries aloud in his agony of longing for rest. +Poor victim of worry and sleeplessness, how I long to help you get +rid of your evil habit and save others from falling into it. For both +worry and sleeplessness are habits, easily gained, and once gained +very hard to get rid of, yet both unnecessary, needless, and foolish. +The worry that produces sleeplessness is merciless; so merciless and +relentless that no fierce torture of a Black-hander can be described +that is worse in its long continuing and evil results. Lives are +wrecked, brains shattered, happiness destroyed by this monstrous evil, +and many a man and woman fastens it upon himself, herself, +through indulging in anxious thought, or by yielding to that equal +devil-dragon of self-pity. + +David the psalmist graphically tells of his own case: + + I am weary with my groaning; + Every night make I my bed to swim; + I water my couch with my tears, + Mine eye wasteth away because of grief. _Ps. VI_. 6:7. + +At another time he cries + + My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? + Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words + of my groaning? + Oh my God, I cry in the day time, but thou answereth not; + And in the night season, I am not silent. _Ps. XXII_. 1:2. + +Yet God heard him not until his groaning and self-pity were cast +aside, until he rested in God, trusted in Him. Then came rest, as he +graphically expresses it: + + I laid me down and slept; + I awaked; for Jehovah sustaineth me. _Ps. III. 5_. + + In peace will I both lay me down and sleep: + For thou, Jehovah, alone maketh me dwell in safety. _Ps. IV. 8._ + + I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; + Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons. _Ps. XVI. 7._ + +See the result of this confidence in God. + + I have set Jehovah always before me: + Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. + Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: + My flesh also shall dwell in safety. _Ps. XVI. 8:9._ + +And where the heart is glad, and one rejoiceth in the sense of peace +and safety, sweet sleep lays its soothing hand upon the work-worn +brain and body, tired with the labors of the day, and brings rest, +repose, recuperation. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HOLY WRIT, THE SAGES, AND WORRY + + +Our civilization is called a _Christian_ civilization. We are the +_Christian_ nations. Yet, as I have shown in Chapters I and II, +ours is the worrying civilization. That worry is dishonoring to our +civilization, and especially to our professions as Christians is +self-evident. Let us then look briefly in the book we call our Holy +Bible, our Guide of Life, our Director to Salvation, and see what the +sacred writers have to say upon this subject. If they commend it, we +may assume that it will be safe to worry. If they rebuke or reprobate +it we may be equally assured that we have no right to indulge in it. + +St. Paul seemed to have a very clear idea of worry when he said: + + Be careful--[full of care]--for nothing, but in everything by + prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests + known unto God. _Philippians_ 4:6. + +How inclusive this is--full of care, anxiety, fretfulness, worry about +_nothing_, but in _everything_ presenting your case to God. And then +comes the promise: + + And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall + keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. _Phil_. IV. 7. + +How clear, definite, full and satisfactory. What room for worry +is there in a heart full of the peace of God, which passeth all +understanding? And oh, how much to be desired is such an experience. + +Browning, in his _Abt Vogler_, sings practically the same sweet song +where he says: + + Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, + Each sufferer says his says, his scheme of the weal and woe: + But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; + The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know. + +If God whispers in the ear of the sufferer, the doubter, the +distressed, the worried, the peace must come; and if peace come, it +matters not what others' reasoning may bring to them, the knowledge +that God has whispered is enough; it brings satisfaction, content, +serenity, peace. The opposite of worry is rest, faith, trust, peace. +How full the Bible is of promises of rest to those who know and love +God and his ways of right-doing. Mendlessohn took the incitement of +the psalmist (Psalm 37:7), "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for +him," and made of it one of the tenderest, sweetest songs of all time. +Full of yearning over the worried, the distressed, the music itself +seems to brood in sympathetic and soothing power, as a mother croons +to her fretful child: "Why fret, why worry,--No, no! rest, rest my +little one, in the love of the all-Father," and many a weary, fretful, +worried heart has found rest and peace while listening to this sweet +and beautiful song. + +There is still another passage in holy writ that the perpetual worrier +should read and ponder. It is the prophet Isaiah's assurance that God +says to His children: "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I +comfort you." + +Who has not seen a fretful, sick child taken up by a loving mother, +yield to her soothing influence in a few minutes and drop off into +restful, healthful, restoring sleep. What a wonderful and forceful +figure of speech, illustrative of a never-ceasing fact that the Spirit +of all good, the supreme Force of Love and Power in the universe is +looking, watching, without slumber or sleep, untiring, unfailing, ever +ready to give soothing comfort as does the mother, to those who fret +and worry. + +Then, when cause for worry seems to be ever present, why not call upon +this Loving Maternal Soothing Power? Why not rest in His arms, and +thus find peace, poise and serenity? + +How much worry comes from fear as to the future. Men become hoarders, +savers, misers, or work themselves beyond healthful endurance, or shut +out the daily joys of existence in their business absorption, because +they dread poverty in their old age. "Wise provision" becomes a +driving monster, worrying them into a restless, fretful energy that +must be accumulating all the time. + +Two thousand years ago this trait of human nature was so strongly +manifested that Christ felt called upon to restrain and rebuke it. +What a wonderful sermon He preached. It is worth while repeating it +here, and wise would that man, that woman be, who is worried about +to-morrow, were he, she, to read it daily. I give it in the revised +version: + + I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall + eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye + shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body + than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they + sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your + Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value + than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit + unto his stature? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? + Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil + not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even + Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. + But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day + is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much + more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore + anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? + or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these + things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth + that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his + kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be + added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for + the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day + is the evil thereof. _Matthew_, 6:25-34. + +Here is the wisest philosophy. Anxiety is suicide, peace is life; +worry destroys, serenity upbuilds. As you want to live, to grow, +possess your souls in peace and serenity. Work, aye, work mightily, +powerfully, daily, but work for the joy of it, not because worry +drives you to it. Work persistently, consistently and worthily, +because no man can live--or ought to live--without it, but do not let +work be your slave driver, your relentless master, urging you on to +drudgery, bondage to your counter, ledger or factory, until you drop +exhausted and lifeless. Work for the real joy of it, and then, filled +with the blessed trust in God the all-Father expressed as above by +Christ, throw your cares to the winds, bid your worries depart, and +accept what comes with serenity, peace and thankfulness. + +Many proverbs have been written about worry, which it may be well +to recall. Certainly it can do no harm to those who worry to see how +their mental habit has been regarded, and is still regarded, by the +concentrated wisdom of the ages. + +An old proverb says: "It is not work, but worry, that kills." How true +this is. Congenial work is a health-bringer, a necessity for a normal +life, a joy; it keeps the body in order, promotes digestion, induces +the sleep of perfect restoration and is one of man's greatest +blessings. But worry brings dis-ease (want of ease), discomfort, +wretchedness, promotes evil secretions which upset the normal workings +of the body, and is a constant banisher and disturber of sleep. + +Still another proverb says: "Worry killed the cat." Many people read +this and fail to see its profound significance. It must be remembered +that in "the good old days," when this proverb was most rife, the +superstitious held that a cat had _nine lives_. Now, surely, the deep +meaning of the proverb is made apparent. Though the cat were possessed +of nine lives, worry would surely kill them all--either one by one, +by its horrid and determined persistence; or all at once, by the +concentrated virulence of its power. + +There are many proverbs to the effect that "When worry comes in, +wit flies out," and these are all true. Worry unsettles the mind, +unbalances the judgment, induces fever of the intellect, which +renders calm, cool weighing of matters impossible. No man of great +achievements ever worried during his period of greatness. Had he done +so his greatness could never have been achieved. Imagine a general +trying to solve the vexing problems of a great combat which is going +against him, with his mind beset by numberless worries. He must +concentrate _all his energies_ upon the one thing. If worry occupies +his attention, wit, sense, judgment, discretion, wisdom are crowded +out, have no place. + +All the pictures given to us of Grant show him the most imperturbable +at the most trying times. When the fortunes of war seemed most against +him he was the most cheerful, the least disturbed. He had learned the +danger of worry, and compelled it to flee from him, that calm judgment +and clear-headed decisions might be his. + +If, therefore, these great ones of earth found it essential to their +well-being to banish worry, how much more is it necessary that we of +the ordinary mass of mankind, of the commoner herd, apply ourselves to +the gaining of the same kind of wisdom. + +An old countrywoman once said in my hearing: "Worry, and you hug a +hornet's nest." How suggestive both of the stinging that was sure to +come and the folly, the absurdity, the cruelty to oneself of the act. + +The great Scotch philosopher, Blair, said: "Worry (or anxiety) is the +poison of human life," and how true it is. How biting, how corroding, +how destructive to life some poisons are, working speedily, suddenly, +awfully. Others there are that have a cumulative effect, until life +itself cannot bear the strain, and it goes out. Recently I was at a +home where a son was so worried over conditions that he felt ought not +to exist between his parents, that he totally collapsed, mentally, +and for a time was in danger of losing his reason. The folly of his +attitude is apparent to everyone but himself, though he now seeks in +the absorbing occupation of teaching, to free himself from the poison +of worry that was speedily destroying his reason. + +Henry Labouchere, the sage who for so many years has edited the London +_Truth_, once wrote a couplet, that is as true as anything he ever +wrote: + + They who live in a worry, + Invite death in a hurry. + +I want to be ready for death when it comes, but as yet I am not +extending an invitation to the gentleman with the scythe. Are you, my +worrying reader, anxious to be mowed down before your time? Quit your +worrying, and don't urge the Master Reaper to harvest you in until He +is sure you are ready. + +Another sage once said: "To worry about to-morrow is to be unhappy +to-day," and the same thought is put into: "Never howl till you are +hit," and the popular proverb attributed erroneously to Lincoln for it +was long in use before Lincoln's time: "Do not cross the stream until +you get to it." Christ put the same thought into his Sermon on the +Mount, when He said: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." +How utterly foolish and wrong it is to spoil to-day by fretting and +worrying over the possible evils of to-morrow. Many a man in business +has ruined himself by allowing worries about to-morrow to prevent him +from doing the needful work of to-day. The rancher who sits down and +worries because he fears it will not rain to-morrow, or it will rain, +fails to do the work of to-day ready for whatever the morrow may bring +forth. The wise Roman, Seneca, expressed the same thing in other words +when he wrote: "He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before +it is necessary," and our own Lowell had a similar thought in mind +which he expressed as follows: "The misfortunes hardest to bear are +those which never come." Even the Chinese saw the folly of worrying +over events that have not yet transpired, for they have a saying: "To +what purpose should a person throw himself into the water before the +boat is cast away (wrecked)." + +All these proverbs, therefore, show that the wisdom of the ages +is against worrying over things that have not yet transpired. Let +to-morrow take care of itself. Live to-day. As Cardinal Newman's +wonderful hymn expresses it: + + I do not ask to see the distant scene, + One step enough for me. + +Furthermore, the evil we dread for to-morrow may never come. Every +man's experience demonstrates this. The bill for which he has not +money in the bank is met by the unexpected payment of an account +overdue, or not yet due. Hence if fears come of the morrow, if we are +tempted to worry about a grief that seems to be approaching, let us +resolutely cast the temptation aside, and by a full occupation of +mind and body in the work of the "now," engage ourselves beyond the +possibility of hearing the voice of the tempter. + +When one considers the words that are regarded as synonymous with +"worry," or that are related to it, he sees what cruelties lurk in the +facts behind the words. To grieve, fret, pine, mourn, bleed, chafe, +yearn, droop, sink, give way to despair, all belong to the category of +worry. + +Phrases like "to sit on thorns," "to be on pins and needles," "to +drain the cup of misery to the dregs," show with graphic power the +folly and curse of worry. Why should one sit on thorns, or on pins +and needles? If one does so accidentally he arises in a hurry, yet +in worrying, one seems deliberately, with intent, to sit down upon +prickles in order to compel himself to discomfort, distress, and pain. +Is there any wisdom, when one has the cup of misery at his lips, in +deliberately keeping it there, and persistently drinking it to the +"very dregs"? One unconsciously feels like shouting to the drinker: +"Put it down, you fool!" and if the harsh command be not instantly +obeyed, rushing up and dashing it out of the drinker's hand. + +Take a few more words and look at them, and see how closely they are +related to worry,--to be displeased, fretted, annoyed, incommoded, +discomposed, troubled, disquieted, crossed, teased, fretted, irked, +vexed, grieved, afflicted, distressed, plagued, bothered, pestered, +bored, harassed, perplexed, haunted. These things worry does to those +who yield themselves to its noxious power. + +Worry deliberately pains, wounds, hurts, pinches, tweaks, grates upon, +galls, chafes, gnaws, pricks, lancinates, lacerates, pierces, cuts, +gravels, corrodes, mortifies, shocks, horrifies, twinges and gripes +its victims. + +It smites, beats, punishes, wrings, harrows, torments, tortures, +racks, scarifies, crucifies, convulses, agonizes, irritates, provokes, +stings, nettles, maltreats, bites, snaps at, assails, badgers, +harries, persecutes, those who give it shelter. + +Is it not apparent, then, that the only course open for a sensible man +or woman is to + +QUIT WORRYING. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE NEEDLESSNESS AND USELESSNESS OF WORRY + + +Of all the mental occupations fallen into, invented, or discovered by +man, the most needless, futile, and useless of all is the occupation +of worry. We have heard it said often, when one was speaking of +another's work, or something he had done: "He ought to be in a better +business." So, _in every case_, can it be said of the worrier: He's +in a bad business; a business that ought not to exist, one without a +single redeeming feature. If for no other reason the fact implied by +the title of this chapter ought to be sufficient to condemn it. Worry +is needless, useless, futile, of none effect. Why push a heavy rock up +a mountain side merely to have it roll down again? Yet one might find +good in the physical development that came from this needless uphill +work. And he might laugh, and sing, and be cheery while he was doing +it. But in the case of the worrier he not only pushes the rock up the +hill, but he is beset with the dread that, every moment, it is going +to roll back and kill him, and he thinks of nothing but the fear, and +the strain, and the distress. + +When one calmly considers, it is almost too ridiculous to write +seriously about the needlessness and uselessness of worry; its +futility is so self-evident to an intelligent mind. Yet, because so +many otherwise intelligent and good people are cursed by it, it seems +necessary to show its utter uselessness. These say: "I would stop +worrying if I could; but I can't help it; I worry in spite of myself!" + +Don't you believe it! You doubtless think your statement is true, but +it is nothing of the kind. Worry could find no place in your mind +if it was full to overflowing with something really useful and +beneficial. It is a proof either that your mind bosses you,--in other +words, that you cannot direct it to think upon something worth while, +that it is absolutely untrained, undisciplined, uncontrolled,--or that +it is so empty, it takes to worry as a refuge against its own vacuity. +The fact of worry implies either that the worrier has no control over +his mind, or has an empty mind. + +Now no intelligent person will, for one moment, confess to such +weakness of mind that he has no control over it. An unoccupied +mind can always be occupied if one so wills. No human being is so +constituted that nothing appeals to him or interests him, so +every mind can be awakened and filled with contemplation of good +things--things that will help, benefit and bless, if he so desires. + +In the Foreword I have referred to my own experience. Many who knew +some of the facts and saw the change that came over my life, have +asked me _how_ I succeeded in eliminating worry. I refused to allow my +mind to dwell upon harassing topics or events in my life. If I awoke +during the night, I turned on the light and picked up a book and +forced my thought into another channel. If the objectionable thoughts +obtruded during the day I did one of many things, as, for instance, +turned to my work with a frenzy of absorption; picked up my hat +and went for a walk; called upon friends; went to a concert; or a +vaudeville show; took in a lecture; stood and watched the crowds; +visited the railway stations--anything, everything, but dwell upon the +subjects that were tabooed. + +Here was a simple and practical remedy, and I found it worked well. +But I can now see that there was a much better way. Where good is +substituted for evil one has "the perfect way," and the Apostle Paul +revealed himself a wise man of practical affairs, when he urged his +readers to "think on the things" that are lovely, pure, just, and of +good report. In my case I merely sought to prevent mental vacuity +so that the seven devils of worry could not rush into, and take +possession of, my empty mind; but I was indifferent, somewhat, to the +kind of thought or mental occupation that was to keep out the thoughts +of worry. A Nick Carter detective story was as good as a Browning +poem, and sometimes better; a cheap and absurd show than an uplifting +lecture or concert. How much better it would have been could I have +had my mind so thoroughly under control--and this control can surely +be gained by any and every man, woman, and child that lives,--that, +when worrying thoughts obtruded, I could have said immediately and +with authoritative power: I will to think on this thing, or that, +or the other. The result would have been an immediate and perfect +cessation of the worry that disturbed, fretted, and destroyed, for the +mind would have become engaged with something that was beneficial and +helpful. And remember this: God is good, and it is His pleasure to +help those who are seeking to help themselves. Or to put it in a way +that even our agnostic friends can receive, Nature is on the side of +the man or woman who is seeking to live naturally, that is, rightly. +Hence, substitute good thoughts for the worrying thoughts and the +latter will fade away as do the mist and fog before the morning sun. + +Here, then, I had clearly demonstrated for myself the needlessness of +worry: _I could prevent it if I would_. And my readers cannot too soon +gain this positive assurance. They _can_, if they _will_. It is simply +a question of wanting to be free earnestly enough to work for freedom. +Is freedom from worry worth while; is it worth struggling for? To me, +it is one of the great blessings of life that worry is largely, if not +entirely, eliminated. I would not go back to the old worrying days for +all the wealth of Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie combined. + +As for the uselessness of worry; who is there, that has studied the +action of worry, that ever found any of the problems it was concerned +over improved by all the hours of worry devoted to it. Worry never +solved a problem yet; worry muddies the water still further instead of +clearing it; worry adds to the tangle instead of releasing it; worry +beclouds the mind, prevents sane judgment, confuses the reason, and +leads one to decisions that never ought to be made, and so to an +uncertainty, as vexatious and irritating as is the original problem +to be solved. If the worry pointed a way out of the difficulty I +would extol worry and regard it as a bitter draught of medicine, to be +swallowed in a hurry, but producing a beneficial result. But it never +does anything to help; it invariably hinders; it sets one chasing +shadows, produces _ignes fatui_ before the eyes, and ultimately leads +one into the bog. + +Elsewhere I have referred to the Indians' attitude of mind. If a +matter can be changed, change it; if not grin and bear it without +complaint. Here is practical wisdom. But to worry over a thing that +can be changed, instead of changing it, is the height of folly, and if +a matter cannot be changed why worry over it? How utterly useless is +the worry. Then, too, worry is the parent of nagging. Nagging is +worry put into words,--the verbal expression of worry about or towards +individuals. The mother wishes her son would do differently. Can the +boy's actions be changed? Then go to work to change them--not to worry +over them. If they cannot be changed, why nag him, why irritate him, +why make a bad matter worse? Nagging, like worry, never once did one +iota of good; it has caused infinite harm, as it sets up an irritation +between those whose love might overcome the difficulty if it were let +alone. Nagging is the constant irritation of a wound, the rubbing of +a sore, the salting an abraded place, the giving a hungry man a tract, +religious advice or a bible, when all he craves is food. + +Ah, mother! many a boy has run away from home because your worry led +you to nag him; many a girl to-day is on the streets because father +or mother nagged her; many a husband has "gone on a tear" because he +could not face his wife's "worry put into words," even though no one +would attempt to deny that boy, girl and husband alike were wrong +_in every particular_, and the "nagger" in the right, save in the one +thing of worry and its consequent nagging. + +In watching the lives of men and women I have been astonished, again +and again, that the fruitlessness of their worry did not demonstrate +its uselessness to them. No good ever comes from it. Everybody who has +any perception sees this, agrees to it, confesses it. Then why still +persist in it? Yet they do, and at the same time expect to be regarded +as intelligent, sane, normal human beings, many of whom claim, as +members of churches, peculiar and close kinship with God, forgetful of +the fact that every moment spent in worry is dishonoring to God. + +How much needless anxiety, care, and absolute torture some women +suffer in an insane desire to keep their homes spotlessly clean. The +house must be without a speck of dirt anywhere; the kitchen must be as +spotless as the parlor; the sink must be so immaculate that you could +eat from it, if necessary; the children must always be in their best +bibs and tuckers and appear as Little Lord Fauntleroys; and no one, +at any time, or any circumstance, must ever appear to be dirty, +except the scavenger who comes to remove the accumulated debris of the +kitchen, and the man who occasionally assists the gardener. + +These people forget that all dirt and dust is not of greater value +than spotless cleanliness. Let us look calmly at the problem for a few +minutes. Here is a housewife who cannot afford help to keep her house +as spotless as her instincts and her training desire. It is simply +impossible for her, personally, to go over the house daily with rag, +duster and dustpan. If she attempts it, as she does sometimes--she +overworks, and a breakdown is the result. What, then, is the sensible, +the reasonable, the only thing she should do? Sit down and "worry" +over her "untidy house"; lament that "the stairs have not been swept +since day before yesterday; that the parlor was not dusted this +morning; the music-room looks simply awful," and cry that "if Mrs. +Brown were to come in and see my wretchedly untidy house, I'm sure I +should die of shame!" Would this help matters? Would one speck of dirt +be removed as the result of the worry, the wailing, and the tears? Not +a speck. Every particle would remain just as before. + +Yet other things would not be as they were before. No woman could feel +as I have suggested this "worriting creature" felt, without gendering +irritation in husband, children and friends. Is any house that was +ever built worth the alienation of dear ones? What is the dust, dirt, +disorder, of a really untidy house--I am supposing an extraordinary +case--compared with the irritation caused by a worrying housewife? + +Furthermore: such a woman is almost sure to break down her own health +and become an irritable neurasthenic or hypochondriac, and thus add to +the burdens of those she loves. + +There are women who, instead of following this course, make themselves +wretched--and everyone else around them--by the worry of contrasting +their lot with that of some one more fortunately situated than they. +_She_ has a husband who earns more money than does hers; such an one +has a larger allowance and can afford more help--the worry, however, +is the same, little matter what form it takes, and worry is the +destructive thing. + +What, then, shall a woman do, who has to face the fact that she cannot +gratify her desire to keep her house immaculate, either because she +has not the strength to do it, or the money to hire it done. The old +proverb will help her: "What can't be cured must be endured." There +is wonderful help in the calm, full, direct recognition of unpleasant +facts. Look them squarely in the face. Don't dodge them, don't deny +them. Know them, understand them, then defy them to destroy your +happiness. If you can't dust your house daily, dust it thrice a week, +or twice, or once, and determine that you will be happy in spite of +the dust. The real comfort of the house need not thereby be impaired, +as there is a vast difference between your scrupulous cleanliness and +careless untidiness. Things may be in order even though the floor has +a little extra dust on, or the furniture has not been dusted for four +days. + +"But," you say, "I am far less disturbed by the over work than I am by +the discomfort that comes from the dust." Then all I can say is that +you are wrongly balanced, according to my notion of things. Your +health should be of far more value to you than your ideas of house +tidiness, but you have reversed the importance of the two. Teach +yourself the relative value of things. A hundred dollar bill is of +greater value than one for five dollars, and the life of your baby +more important than the value of the hundred dollar bill. Put first +things first, and secondly, and tertiary, and quarternary things +in their relative positions. Your health and self-poise should come +first, the comfort and happiness of husband and family next, the more +or less spotlessness and tidiness of the house afterwards. Then, if +you cannot have your house as tidy as you wish, resolutely resolve +that you will not be disturbed. You will control your own life and not +allow a dusty room--be it never so dusty--to destroy your comfort and +peace of mind, and that of your loved ones. + +When a woman of this worrying type has children she soon learns that +she must choose between the health and happiness of her children +and the gratification of her own passionate desire for spotless +cleanliness. This gratification, if permanently indulged in, soon +becomes a disease, for surely only a diseased mind can value the +spotlessness of a house more than the health, comfort, and happiness +of children. Yet many women do--more's the pity. Such poor creatures +should learn that there is a dirtiness that is far worse than dirt in +a house--a dirtiness, a muddiness of mind, a cluttering of thought, a +making of the mind a harboring place for wrong thoughts. Not wrong in +the sense of immoral or wicked, as these words are generally used, but +wrong in this sense, viz., that reason shows the folly, the inutility, +the impracticability of attempting to bring up sane, healthy, happy, +normal children in a household controlled by the idea that spotless +cleanliness is the matter of prime importance to be observed. The +discomfort of children, husband, mother herself are nothing as +compared with keeping the house in perfect order. Any woman so +obsessed should be sent for a short time to an insane asylum, for she +certainly has so reversed the proper order of values as to be so far +insane. She has "cluttered up" her mind with a wrong idea, an idea +which dirties, muddies, soils her mind far worse than dust soils her +house. + +Reader, keep your mind free from such dirt--for dirt is but "matter in +the wrong place." Far better have dust, dirt, in your house, dirt on +your child's hands, face, and clothes, than on your own mind to give +you worry, discomfort and disease. + + + + +CHAPTER VI THE SELFISHNESS OF WORRY + + +If worry merely affected the one who worries it might be easier, +in many cases, to view worry with equanimity and calmness. But, +unfortunately, in the disagreeable features of life, far more than the +agreeable, the aphorism of the apostolic writer, "No man liveth unto +himself," seems to be more than ordinarily true. It is one proof of +the selfishness of the "worrier"--whether consciously or unconsciously +I do not say--that he never keeps his worry to himself. He must always +"out with it." The nervous mother worrying about her baby shows it +even to the unconscious child at her breast. When the child is older +she still shows it, until the little one knows as well as it knows +when the sun is shining that "mother is worrying again." The worrying +wife does not keep her worry to herself; she pours it out to, or upon, +her husband. The worrying husband is just the same. If it is the wife +that causes him to worry--or to think so--he pours out his worry +in turbulent words, thus adding fuel to a fire already too hot for +comfort. + +It is one of the chief characteristics of worry that it is seldom +confined to the breast of its victim. It loses its power, too often, +when shut up. It must find expression in looks, in tone of voice, in +sulkiness, in dumps, in nagging or in a voicing of its woes. + +It is in this voicing of itself that worry demonstrates its inherent +selfishness. If father, mother, wife, friends, neighbors, _anybody_ +can give help, pleasure, joy, instruction, profit, their voices are +always heard with delight. If they have reasonable cautions to give +to those they love, who seem to them to be thoughtless, regardless of +danger which they see or fear, or even foolhardy, let them speak out +bravely, courageously, lovingly, and they will generally be listened +to. But to have them voice their fretful, painful, distressing worries +no one is benefitted, and both speaker and the one spoken to are +positively harmed. For an unnecessary fear voiced is strengthened; it +is made more real. If one did not feel it before, it is now planted in +his mind to his serious detriment, and once there, it begins to breed +as disease germs are said to breed, by millions, and one moment of +worry weds another moment, and the next moment a family of worries +is born that surround, hamper and bewilder. Is this kindly, is it +helpful, is it loving, is it unselfish? + +The questions answer themselves. The planting of worry in the mind of +another is heartless, cruel, unkind and selfish. + +Another question naturally arises: If this course of action is +selfish, and the worrier really desires to be unselfish, how can he +control his worry, at least so as not to communicate it to another? +The answer also is clear. + +Let him put a guard upon his lips, a watch upon his actions. Let him +say to himself: Though I do not, for my own sake, care to control the +needless worries of my life, I must not, I dare not curse other lives +with them. Hence I must at least keep them to myself--I must not voice +them, I must not display them in face, eyes or tone. + +Then there is the mother who worries over her child's clothing. She +is never ceasing in her cautions. It is "don't, don't, don't," from +morning to night, and whether this seems "nagging" to her or not, +there would be a unanimous vote on the subject were the child +consulted as to his feelings. Of course the boy, the girl, must be +taught to take care of his, her, clothes, but this is never done by +nagging. A far better plan would be to fit a punishment which really +belongs to the evil or careless habit of the child. For instance, if +a boy will persist in throwing his hat anywhere, instead of hanging +it up, let the parent give him _one_ caution, not in a threatening +or angry way, but in just as matter of fact a fashion as if she were +telling him of some news: "John, the next time you fail to hang your +hat in its proper place I shall lock it up for three days!" + +Then, if John fails, take the hat and lock it up, and _let it +stay locked-up_, though the heavens fall. The same with a child's +playthings, tennis racquets, base-balls, bats, etc. As a rule one +application of the rule cures. This is immeasurably more sensible than +nagging, for it produces the required result almost instantly, and +there is little irritation to either person concerned, while nagging +is never effective, and irritates both all the time. + +Other parents worry considerably over their children getting in the +dirt. + +In an article which recently appeared in _Good Housekeeping_ Dr. Woods +Hutchinson says some sensible things on "Children as Cabbages." He +starts out by saying: "It is well to remember that not all dirt is +dirty. While some kinds of dirt are exceedingly dangerous, others are +absolutely necessary to life." + +If your children get into the dirty and dangerous dirt, spend your +energies in getting them into the other kind of dirt, rather than in +nagging. Fall into the habit of doing the wise, the rational, the +sane thing, because it produces results, rather than the foolish, +irrational, insane thing which never produces a result save anger, +irritation, and oftentimes, alienation. + +In a little book written by J.J. Bell, entitled _Wee MacGregor_, there +is a worrying mother. Fortunately she is sweet-spirited with it all, +or it would have been unbearable. + +She and her husband John, and the baby, wee Jeannie, with Macgregor +were going out to dinner at "Aunt Purdie's," who was "rale genteel an' +awfu' easy offendit." The anxious mother was counselling her young son +regarding his behavior at the table of that excellent lady: + + 'An' mind, Macgreegor, ye're no' to be askin' fur jeely till + ye've ett twa bits o' breed-an'-butter. It's no' mainners; an' + yer Aunt Purdie's rale partecclar. An' yer no' to dicht yer + mooth wi' yer cuff--mind that. Ye're to tak' yer hanky an' + let on ye're jist gi'ein' yer nib a bit wipe. An' ye're no' to + scale yer tea nor sup the sugar if ony's left in yer cup when + ye're dune drinkin'. An' if ye drap yer piece on the floor + ye're no' to gang efter it; ye're jist to let on ye've ett it. + An' ye're no'-- + + 'Deed, Lizzie,' interposed her husband, 'ye're the yin to + think aboot things.' + + 'Weel, John, if I dinna tell Macgreegor hoo to behave hissel', + he'll affront me,' etc., etc., etc. + +Who has not thus seen the anxious mother? And who ever saw her +worrying and anxiety do much if any good? Train your child by all +means in your own home, but let up when you are going out, for your +worry worries him, makes him self-conscious, brings about the very +disasters you wish to avoid, and at the same time destroys his, +your, and everyone's else, pleasure who observes, feels, or hears the +expressions of worry. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CAUSES OF WORRY + + +Worry is as multiform and as diverse as are the people who worry. +Indeed worriers are the most ingenious persons in the world. When +every possible source of worry seems to be removed, they proceed +immediately to invent some new cause which an ordinary healthful mind +could never have conceived. + +The causes of worry are innumerable. They represent the sum total +of the errors, faults, missteps, unholy aims, ambitions, foibles, +weaknesses and crimes of men. Every error, mistake, weakness, crime, +etc., is a source of worry--a cause of worry. Worry is connected only +with the weak, the human, the evil side of human nature. It has no +place whatever in association with goodness, purity, holiness, faith, +courage and trust in God. When good men and women worry, in so far as +they worry they are not good. Their worry is a sign of weakness, of +lack of trust in God, of unbelief, of unfaithfulness. The man who +knows God and his relationship to man; who knows his own spiritual +nature and his relationship to God _never worries_. There is no +possible place in such a man's life for worry. + +Hence it will be seen that I believe worry to be evil, and nothing but +evil, and, therefore, without one reclaiming or redeeming feature, for +it can be productive of nothing but evil. + +If you really desire to know the sources of your worry _study each +worry as it comes up_. Analyse it, dissect it, weigh it, examine it +from every standpoint, judge it by the one test that everything in +life must, and ought to submit to, viz.: its usefulness. What use +is it to you? How necessary to your existence? How helpful is it in +solving the problems that confront you; how far does it aid you in +their solution, wherein does it remove the obstacles before your +pathway. Find out how much it strengthens, invigorates, inspires you. +Ask yourself how much it encourages, enheartens, emboldens you. Put +down on paper every slightest item of good, or help, or inspiration +it is to you, and on the other hand, the harm, the discouragement, the +evil, the fears it brings to you, and then strike a balance. + +I can tell you beforehand that after ten years' study--if so long were +necessary--you will fail to find one good thing in favor of worry, +and that every item you will enumerate will be against it. Hence, why +worry? Quit it! + +Worry, like all evils, feeds on itself, and grows greater by its own +exercise. Did it decline when exercised, diminish when allowed a free +course, one might let it alone, even encourage it, in order that it +might the sooner be dead. But, unfortunately, it works the other +way. The more one worries the more he continues to worry. The more +he yields to it the greater becomes its power. It is a species of +hypnotism: once allow it to control, each new exercise diminishes the +victim's power of resistance. + +Never was monster more cruel, more relentless, more certain to hang on +to the bitter end than worry. He shows no mercy, has not the slightest +spark of relenting or yielding. And his power is all the greater +because it is so subtle. He wants you to be "careful"--taking good +care, however, not to let you know that he means to make you _full of +care_. He pleads "love" as the cause for his existence. He would have +you love your child, hence "worry" about him. He thus trades on your +affection to blind you to your child's best interests by "worrying" +about him. For when worry besets you, is harassing you on every hand, +how can you possibly devote your wisdom, your highest intelligence to +safeguarding the welfare of the one you love. + +Never was a slave in the South, though in the hands of a Legree, +more to be pitied than the slave of worry. He dogs every footstep, is +vigilant every moment. He never sleeps, never tires, never relaxes, +never releases his hold so long as it is possible for him to retain +it. When you seek to awaken people to the terror, the danger, the +hourly harm their slavery to worry is bringing to them, they are so +completely in worry's power that they weakly respond: "But I can't +help it." And they verily believe they can't; that their bondage is +a natural thing; a state "ordained from the foundation of the world," +altogether ignoring the frightful reflection such a belief is upon the +goodness of God and his fatherly care for his children. Natural! It is +the most unnatural thing in existence. Do the birds worry? The beasts +of the field? The clouds? The winds? The sun, moon, stars, and comets? +The trees? The flowers? The rain-drops? How Bryant rebukes the worrier +in his wonderful poem "_To a Water Fowl_," and Celia Thaxter in her +"_Sandpiper_." The former sings of the fowl winging its solitary way +where "rocking billows rise and sink on the chafed ocean-side," yet +though "lone wandering" it is not lost. And from its protection he +deduces the lesson: + + He who, from zone to zone, + Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, + In the long way that I must tread alone + Will lead my steps aright. + +And so Celia Thaxter sang of the sandpiper: + + He has no thought of any wrong, + He scans me with a fearless eye. + +And her faith expressed itself in a later verse: + + I do not fear for thee, though wroth + The tempest rushes through the sky: + For are we not God's children both, + Thou, little sandpiper, and I? + +There is no worry in Nature. It is man alone that worries. Nature goes +on her appointed way each day unperturbed, unvexed, care-free, doing +her allotted tasks and resting absolutely in the almighty sustaining +power behind her. Should man do any less? Should man--the reasoning +creature, with intelligence to see, weigh, judge, appreciate,--alone +be uncertain of the fatherly goodness of God; alone be unable to +discern the wisdom and love behind all things? Worry, therefore, is an +evidence that we do not trust the all-fatherliness of God. + +It is also the direct product of vanity, pride and self-conceit. If +these three qualities of evil in the human heart could be removed a +vast aggregate amount of worry would die instantly. No one can study +his fellow creatures and not soon learn that an immense amount of +worry is caused by these three evils. + +We are worried lest our claims to attention are not fully recognized, +less our worth be not observed, our proper station accorded to us. How +we press our paltry little claims upon others, how we glorify our own +insignificant deeds; how large loom up our small and puny acts. The +whole universe centers in us; our ego is a most important thing; +our work of the highest value and significance; our worth most +inestimable. + +The fact of the matter is most men and women are inestimable, their +deeds of value, their lives of importance. Our particular circle needs +us, as we need those who compose it, we are all important, but few, +indeed, are there, whose power, influence and importance reach far. +Most of the men and women of the world are ordinary. A man may be +a king in Wall street, and yet influence but few outside of his own +immediate sphere. Most probably he is unknown to the great mass of +mankind. Adventitious circumstances bring some men and women more +prominently before the world than others, but even such fame as this +is transient, evanescent, and of little importance. The devoted love +of our own small circle; the reliable friendship of the few; the +blind adoration of the pet dog are worth more than all the "fame," the +"eclat," the "renown" of the multitude. And where we have such love, +friendship, and blind adoration, let us rest content therein, and +smile at the floods of temporary and evanescent emotion which sweep +over the mob, but do not have us for their object. I have just read +a letter which perfectly illustrates how our vanity, our pride, and +personal importance bring much worry to us. The writer--practically +a stranger coming from a far-away state--evidently expected to be +received with a cordial welcome and open arms, by one who scarcely +knew him, given an important place in a lengthy program where men +of national reputation were to speak, and generally be treated with +deference and respect. Unfortunately his name was not placed _in +full_ on the program,--curtly initialed he called it--and owing to +its length "the chairman caused me to spoil my remarks by asking me to +shorten them," and a hotel clerk "outrageously insulted" him when he +asked for information. Then, to make ill matters worse--piling Ossa. +upon Pelion--he was asked to speak at a certain club, with others. +One of the newspapers, in reporting the event, commented upon what the +others said and did but ignore him. This he thought might have been +merely an oversight, but when, the next day, he saw another report +wherein he was not mentioned he was certain "it was a deliberate +intention to ignore" him. He then asks that the person to whom he +writes "try to find out who is responsible for this affront," and tell +him--in order that he may worry some more, I suppose, over trying to +"get back at him." + +Poor, poor fellow, how he is to be pitied for being so "sensitive," so +sure that people regard him enough to want to affront him. + +Here is a perfect illustration of the worries caused by vanity; +five complaints in one letter, of indignities, or affronts, that an +ordinary, robust red-blooded man would have passed by without notice. +If I were to worry over the times I have been ignored and neglected +I should worry every day. I am fairly well known to many hundreds of +thousands of people who read my books, my magazine articles, and hear +my lectures, yet I often go to cities and there are no brass bands, +no committee, flowers, or banquet to welcome me. No! indeed, the +indignity is thrust upon me of having to walk to the hotel, carry +my own grip, and register, the same as any other ordinary, common, +everyday man! Why should not my blood boil when I think of it? Then, +too, when I recall how often my addresses are ignored in the local +press, ought not I to be aroused to fierce ire? When a hotel clerk +fails to recognize my national importance and gives me a flippant +answer when I ask for information should I not deem it time that the +Secretary of State interfere and write a State paper upon the matter? + +Oh vanity, conceit, pride, how many sleepless hours of worry and fret +you bring to your victims, and the pitiable, the lamentable thing +about it all is that they congratulate themselves upon being filled +with "laudable pride," "recognizing their own importance," and +knowing that "honorable ambition" is beneficial. Nothing that causes +unnecessary heart-aches and worry is worth while, and of all the +prolific causes of these woes commend me to the vanity, the conceit, +the pride of small minds and petty natures. + +False pride leads its victim to want to make a false impression. He +puts on a false appearance. He wishes to appear wiser, better, in +easier circumstances, richer than he is. He wears a false front. He is +unnatural. He dare not--having decided to make the appearance, and win +the impression of falseness--be natural. Hence he is self-conscious +all the time lest he make a slip, contradict himself, lose the result +he is seeking to attain. He is to be compared to an actor whose part +requires him to wear a wig, a false moustache, a false chin. In the +hurry of preparation these shams are not adjusted properly and the +actor rushes on the stage fearful every moment lest his wig is +awry, his moustache fall off, or the chin slip aside and make him +ridiculous. He dare not stop to make sure, to "fix" them if they are +wrong, as that would reveal their falsity immediately. He can only +play on, sweating blood the while. + +In the case of the actor one can laugh at the temporary fear and +worry, but what a truly pitiable object is the man, the woman, whose +whole life is one dread worry lest his, her, false appearance be +discovered. And while pride and vanity are not the only sources of +these attempts to make false impressions upon others they are a most +prolific source. In another chapter I have treated more fully of this +phase of the subject. + +Wastefulness, extravagance, is a prolific source of worry. Spend +to-day, starve to-morrow. Throw your money to the birds to-day; +to-morrow the crow, jay, and vulture will laugh and mock at you. Feast +to-day; next week you may starve. Riches take to themselves wings +and fly away. No one is absolutely safe, and while many thousands +go through life indifferent about their expenditures, wasteful and +extravagant and do not seem to be brought to time therefor, it must +not be forgotten that tens of thousands start out to do the same thing +and fail. What is the result? Worry over the folly of the attempt; +worry as to where the necessary things for the future are coming from! + +While I would not have the well-to-do feel that they must be niggardly +I would earnestly warn them against extravagance, against the +acquiring of expensive habits of wastefulness that later on may be +chains of a cruel bondage. Why forge fetters upon oneself? Far better +be free now and thus cultivate freedom for whatever future may come. +For as sure as sure can be wilful waste and reckless extravagance now +will sometime or other produce worry. + +One great, deep, awful source of worry is _our failure to accept the +inevitable_. Something happens,--we wilfully shut our eyes to the fact +that this something has changed _forever_ the current of our lives, +and if the new current _seems_ evil, if it brings discomfort, +separation, change of circumstance, etc., we worry, and worry, and +continue to worry. This is lamentably foolish, utterly absurd and +altogether reprehensible. Let us resolutely face the facts, accept +them, and then reshape our lives, bravely and valiantly, to suit the +new conditions. + +For instance a friend of mine spent twenty years in the employ of a +great corporation. As a reward of faithful service he was finally put +in a responsible position as the head of a department. A few months +ago he was sent East on a special mission connected with his work. +Just before his return the corporation elected a new president, +who "shook up" the whole concern, changed around several officials, +dismissed others, and in the case of my friend, supplanted him by a +new man imported from the East, offering him a subordinate position, +but, at the same salary he had before been receiving. + +How should this man have treated this settled fixed fact in his +life? He had two great broad pathways open to him. In one he would +deliberately recognize and accept the changed condition, acquiese in +it and live accordingly. It is not pleasant to be supplanted, but if +another man is appointed to do the work you have been doing, and your +superiors think he can do it better than you have been doing it, then +manfully face the facts and accord him the most sincere and hearty +support. It may be hard, but our training and discipline,--which means +our improvement and advancement--come, not from doing the easy and +pleasant things, but from striving, cheerfully and pleasantly to do +the arduous and disagreeable ones. The other way open for my friend +was to resent the change, accept it with anger, let his vanity be +wounded, and begin to worry over it. What would have been the probable +result? The moment he began to worry his efficiency would have +decreased, and he would thus have prepared himself for another "blow" +from his employers, another change less to his advantage, and with a +possible reduction in salary. His employers, too, would have pointed +to his decreased efficiency--the only thing they consider--as +justification for their act. + +I would not say that if a man, in such a case as I have described, +deems that he has been treated unjustly, should not protest, but, when +he has protested, and a decision has been rendered against him let him +accept the judgment with serenity, refuse to worry over it, and go to +work with loyalty and faithfulness, or else seek new employment. + +Even, on the other hand, were he to have been discharged, there could +have come no good from yielding to worry. _Accept the inevitable_, do +not argue or fret about it, put worry aside, go to work to find a new +position, and make what seemed to be an evil the stepping-stone to +something better. + +Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont, the wife of the gallant pathfinder, +General Fremont, was afflicted with deafness in the later years of her +life. She,--the petted and flattered, the caressed and spoiled child +of fortune, the honored and respected woman of power and superior +ability--deaf, and unable to participate in the conversation going +on around her. Many a woman under these conditions, would have become +irritable, irascible, and a reviler of Fate. To any woman it would +have been a great deprivation, but to one mentally endowed as Mrs. +Fremont, it was especially severe. Yet did she "worry" about it? No! +bravely, cheerfully, boldly, she _accepted the inevitable_, and +in effect defied the deafness that had come to her to destroy her +happiness, embitter her life, take away the serenity of her mind and +the equipoise of her soul. If there had to be a battle to gain this +high plane of acceptance, she fought it out in secret, for her friends +and the world never heard a word of a murmur from her. I had the joy +of a talk with her about it, for it was a joy to have her make light +of her affliction, in the great number of good things wherein God +had blessed her. Laughingly she said: "Even in deafness I find many +compensations. One is never bored by conversation that is neither +intelligent, instructive or interesting. I can go to sleep under the +most persistent flood of boredom, and like the proverbial water on a +duck's back it never bothers me. Again, I never hear the unpleasant +things said about either my friends or my enemies, and what a blessing +that is. I am also spared hearing about many of the evils, the +disagreeable, the unpleasant and horrible things of life that I cannot +change, help, or alleviate, and I am thankful for my ignorance. +Then, again, when people say things that I can and do hear--in my +trumpet--that I don't think anyone should ever say, I can rebuke them +by making them think that I heard them say the very opposite of what +they did say, and I smile upon them 'and am a villain still.'" + +Charles F. Lummis, the well-known litterateur and organizer of the +South-West Museum, of Los Angeles, after using his eyes and brain more +liberally than most men do in a lifetime thrice, or four times as long +as his, was unfortunately struck blind. Did he "worry" over it, and +fret himself into a worse condition? No! not for a moment. Cheerfully +he accepted the inevitable, got someone to read and write for him, to +guide him through the streets, and went ahead with his work just as +if nothing had happened, looking forward to the time when his eyesight +would be restored to him and hopefully and intelligently worked to +that end. In a year or so he and his friends were made happy by that +coming to pass, but even had it not been so, I am assured Dr. Lummis +would have faced the inevitable without a whimper, a cry, or a word of +worry or complaint. + +Those who yield to worry over small physical ills should read his +inspiring _My Friend Will_,[A] a personal record of his sucessful +struggle against two severe and prostrating attacks of paralysis. One +perusal will show them the folly and futility of worry; a second will +shame them because they have so little self-control as to spend their +time, strength, and energy in worry; and a third perusal will lead +them to drive every fragment of worry out of the hidden recesses +of their minds and set them upon a better way--a way of serenity, +equipoise, and healthful, strenuous, yet joyous and radiant living. + +[Footnote A:_My Friend Will_, by C.F. Lummis, A.C. McClurg Co., +Chicago.] + +Recently I had a conversation with the former superintendent of a poor +farm, which bears upon this subject in a practical way. In relating +some of his experiences he told of a "rough-neck"--a term implying +an ignorant man of rude, turbulent, quarrelsome disposition--who +had threatened to kill the foreman of the farm. Owing to their +irreconcilable differences the rough inmate decided to leave and so +informed the superintendent, thus practically dismissing himself from +the institution. A year later he returned and asked to be re-admitted. +After a survey of the whole situation the superintendent decided that +it was not wise to re-admit him, and that he would better secure +a situation for him outside. He offered to do so and the man left +apparently satisfied. Three days later he reappeared, entered the +office with a loaded and cocked revolver held behind his back, and +abruptly announced: "I've come to blow out your brains." Before he +could shoot the superintendent was upon him and a fierce struggle +ensued for the possession of the weapon. The superintendent at last +took it away, secured help and handcuffed the would-be murderer. +Realizing that his act was the result of at least partial insanity, +the was-to-be victim did not press the charge of murderous assault but +allowed--indeed urged that he be sent to the insane asylum where he +now is. + +Now this is the point I wish to make. It is perfectly within the +bounds of possibility that this man will some day be regarded as +safely sane. Yet it is well known by the awful experiences of many +such cases that it is both possible and probable that during the +months or years of his incarceration he will continue to harbor, even +to feed and foster the bitter feeling, the hatred, perhaps, that +led him to attempt the murder of the superintendent, and that on his +release he will again attempt to carry out his nefarious and awful +design. + +What, then, should be the mental attitude of the superintendent and +his family? Ought they not to be worried? I got the answer for my +readers from this man, and it is so perfectly in accord with my own +principles that I find great pleasure in recording it. Said he: + + Don't think for one moment that I minimize the possible + danger. The asylum physician who was familiar with the whole + circumstances warned me not to rest in fancied security. I + have notified the proper officials that the man who attempted + to murder me is not to be released either as cured or on + parole without giving me sufficient notice. I do not wish that + he should be kept in the asylum a single day longer than is + fully necessary, but before I allow him to be released I must + be thoroughly satisfied that he has no murderous designs on + me, and that he is truly and satisfactorily repentant for + the attack he made when, ostensibly, he was mentally + irresponsible. I shall require that he be put on record + as fully understanding and appreciating his own personal + responsibility for my safety--so that should he still hold any + wrongful designs, and afterwards succeed in carrying them + out, he or his attorneys will be debarred from again pleading + insanity or mental incompetency. + + Hence while I fully realize the possibility of danger I do not + have a moment's worry about it. I have done and shall do all I + can, satisfactorily, to protect myself, without any feeling of + harshness or desire to injure the poor fellow, and there I let + the matter rest to take care of itself. + +This is practical wisdom. This is sane philosophy. Not ignoring the +danger, pooh-pooing it, scoffing at it and refusing to recognize +it, but calmly, sanely, with a kindly heart looking at possible +contingencies, preparing for them, and then serenely trusting to the +spiritual forces of life to control events to a wise and satisfactory +issue. + +Can you suggest anything better? Is not such a course immeasurably +better than to allow himself to worry, and fret and fear all the time? +Practical precaution, _taken without enmity_--note these italicized +words--trustful serenity, faithful performance of present duty +unhampered by fears and worries--this is the rational, normal, +philosophic, sane course to follow. + +Another great source of worry is _our failure to distinguish +essentials from non-essentials_. What are the essentials for life? For +a man, honesty, truth, earnestness, strength, health, ability to work, +and work to do. He may or may not be handsome; he may or may not have +wealth, position, fame, education; but to be a man among men, these +other things he must have. For a woman,--health, love, work, and such +virtues as both men and women need. She might enjoy friends, but they +are not essential as health or work; she would be a strange woman +if she did not prize beauty, but devoted love is worth far more than +beauty or all the conquests it brings. What is the essential for +a chair?--its capacity to be used to sit upon with comfort. A +house?--that it is adapted to the making of a home. You don't buy a +printing-press to curl your hair with but to print, and in accordance +with its printing power is it judged. A boat's usefulness is +determined by its worthiness in the water, to carry safely, rapidly, +largely as is demanded of it. + +This is the judgement sanity demands of everything. What is +essential--What not? Is it essential to be a society leader, to +belong to every club, to hold office, to give as many dinners as one's +neighbors, to have a bigger house, furniture with brighter polish, +bigger carvings and more ugly designs than anyone else in town, +to have our names in the papers oftener than others, to have more +servants, a newer style automobile, put on more show, pomp, ceremony +and circumstance than our friends? + +By no means! Oh for men and women who have the discerning power--the +sight for the essential things, the determination to have them and +let non-essentials go. They are the wise ones, the happy ones, the +free-from-worry ones. + +Later I shall refer extensively to Mrs. Canfield's book _The Squirrel +Cage_. She has many wise utterances on this phase of the worry +question. For instance, in referring to the mad race for wealth and +position that keeps a man away from home so many hours of the day +that his wife and child scarce know him she introduces the following +dialogue: + + One of them whose house isn't far from mine, told me that he + hadn't seen his children, except asleep, for three weeks. + + 'But something ought to be done about it!' The girl's + deep-lying instinct for instant reparation rose up hotly. + + 'Are they so much worse off than most American business men?' + queried Rankin. 'Do any of them feel they can take the time + to see much more than the outside of their children; and isn't + seeing them asleep about as--' + + Lydia cut him short quickly. 'You're always blaming them for + that,' she cried. 'You ought to pity them. They can't help it. + It's better for the children to have bread and butter, isn't + it--' + + Rankin shook his head. 'I can't be fooled with that sort of + talk--I've lived with too many kinds of people. At least half + the time it is not a question of bread and butter. It's a + question of giving the children bread and butter and sugar + rather than bread and butter and father. Of course, I'm a + fanatic on the subject. I'd rather leave off even the butter + than the father--let alone the sugar.' + + Later on Lydia herself lost her father and after his death + her own wail was: 'I never lived with my father. He was always + away in the morning before I was up. I was away, or busy, in + the evening when he was there. On Sundays he never went to + church as mother and I did--I suppose now because he had some + other religion of his own. But if he had I never knew what it + was--or anything else that was in his mind or heart. It never + occurred to me that I could. He tried to love me--I remember + so many times now--and _that_ makes me cry!--how he tried + to love me! He was so glad to see me when I got home from + Europe--but he never knew anything that happened to me. I + told you once before that when I had pneumonia and nearly died + mother kept it from him because he was on a big case. It was + all like that--always. He never knew.' + + Dr. Melton broke in, his voice uncertain, his face horrified: + 'Lydia, I cannot let you go on! you are unfair--you shock me. + You are morbid! I knew your father intimately. He loved you + beyond expression. He would have done anything for you. But + his profession is an exacting one. Put yourself in his place a + little. It is all or nothing in the law--as in business.' + + But Lydia replied: 'When you bring children Into the world, + you expect to have them cost you some money, don't you? You + know you mustn't let them die of starvation. Why oughtn't you + to expect to have them cost you thought, and some sharing of + your life with them, and some time--real time, not just scraps + that you can't use for business?' + + She made the same appeal once to her husband in regard to + their own lives. She wanted to see and know more of him, his + business, his inner life, and this was her cry: 'Paul, I'm + sure there's something the matter with the way we live--I + don't like it! I don't see that it helps us a bit--or anyone + else--you're just killing yourself to make money that goes + to get things we don't need nearly as much as we need more + of each other! We're not getting a bit nearer to each + other--actually further away, for we're both getting different + from what we were without the other's knowing how! And we're + not getting nicer--and what's the use of living if we don't do + that? We're just getting more and more set on scrambling ahead + of other people. And we're not even having a good time out + of it! And here is Ariadne--and another one coming--and we've + nothing to give them but just this--this--this-- + + Paul laughed a little impatiently, irritated and uneasy, as + he always was at any attempt to examine too closely the + foundations of existing ideas. 'Why, Lydia, what's the matter + with you? You sound as though you'd been reading some fool + socialist literature or something.' + + You know I don't read anything, Paul. I never hear about + anything but novels. I never have time for anything else, and + very likely I couldn't understand it if I read it, not having + any education. That's one thing I want you to help me with. + All I want is a chance for us to live together a little more, + to have a few more thoughts in common, and oh! to be trying to + be making something better out of ourselves for our children's + sake. I can't see that we're learning to be anything but--you, + to be an efficient machine for making money, I to think of how + to entertain as though we had more money than we really have. + I don't seem really to know you or live with you any more + than if we were two guests stopping at the same hotel. If + socialists are trying to fix things better, why shouldn't we + have time--both of us--to read their books; and you could help + me know what they mean?' + + Paul laughed again, a scornful, hateful laugh, which brought + the color up to Lydia's pale face like a blow. 'I gather, + then, Lydia, that what you're asking me to do is to neglect my + business in order to read socialistic literature with you?' + + His wife's rare resentment rose. She spoke with dignity: 'I + begged you to be serious, Paul, and to try to understand what + I mean, although I'm so fumbling, and say it so badly. As for + its being impossible to change things, I've heard you say a + great many times that there are no conditions that can't be + changed if people would really try--' + + 'Good heavens! I said that of _business_ conditions!' shouted + Paul, outraged at being so misquoted. + + 'Well, if it's true of them--No; I feel that things are the + way they are because we don't really care enough to have them + some other way. If you really cared as much about sharing a + part of your life with me--really sharing--as you do about + getting the Washburn contract--' + + Her indignant and angry tone, so entirely unusual, moved Paul, + more than her words, to shocked protest. He looked deeply + wounded, and his accent was that of a man righteously + aggrieved. 'Lydia, I lay most of this absurd outbreak to your + nervous condition, and so I can't blame you for it. But I + can't help pointing out to you that it is entirely uncalled + for. There are few women who have a husband as absolutely + devoted as yours. You grumble about my not sharing my life + with you--why, I _give_ it to you entire!' His astonished + bitterness grew as he voiced it. 'What am I working so hard + for if not to provide for you and our child--our children! + Good Heavens! What more _can_ I do for you than to keep my + nose on the grindstone every minute. There are limits to even + a husband's time and endurance and capacity for work.' + +Hence it will be seen that I would have one Quit Worrying about the +non-essentials of life, and this is best done by giving full heed to +the essentials and letting the others go. Naturally, if one wilfully +and purposefully determines to follow non-essentials, he may as well +recognize the fact soon as late that he has deliberately chosen +a course that cannot fail to produce its own many and irritating +worries. + +Another serious cause of worry is bashfulness. One who is bashful +finds in his intercourse with his fellows many worries. His hands and +feet are too large, he blushes at a word, he doesn't know what to say +or how, he is confused if attention is directed his way, his thoughts +fly to the ends of the earth the moment he is addressed, and if he is +expected to say anything, his worries increase so that his pain and +distress are manifest to all. To such an one I would say: Assert your +manhood, your womanhood. Brace up. Face the music. Remember these +facts. You are dealing with men and women, youths and maidens, of the +same flesh and blood, mentality as yourself. You average up with +the rest of them. Why should you be afraid? Call upon your reasoning +power. Assert the dignity of your own existence. You are here by the +will of God as much as they. There is a purpose in your creation as +much as in theirs. You have a right to be seen and heard as well as +have they. Your life may be charged with importance to mankind far +more than theirs. Anyhow for what it is, large or small, you are going +to use it to the full, and you do not propose to be laughed out of it, +sneered out of it, either by the endeavors of others or by your own +fears of others. Then, when you have once fully reasoned the thing +out, do not hesitate to plunge into the fullest possible association +with your fellows. Brave them, defy them (in your own heart), +resolutely face them, and my word and assurance for it, they will lose +their terror, and you will lose your bashfulness with a speed that +will astonish you. + +Closely allied to bashfulness as a cause of many worries is hyper- +or super-sensitiveness. And yet it is an entirely different mental +attitude. Hyper-sensitiveness may cause bashfulness, but there are +many thousands of hyper-sensitives who have not a spark of bashfulness +in their condition. They are full of vanity or self-conceit. Elsewhere +I have referred to one of these. Or they are hyper-sensitive in regard +to their health. They mustn't do this, or that, or the other, they +must be careful not to sit near a window, allow a door to be open, +or go into an unwarmed room. Their feet must never be wet, or their +clothing, and as for sleeping in a cold room, or getting up before the +fire is lighted, they could not live through such awful hardships. + +I have no desire to excoriate or make fun of those who really suffer +from chronic invalidism, yet I am fully assured that much of the +hyper-sensitiveness of the neurasthenic and hypochondriac could be +removed by a little rude, rough and tumble contact with life. It +would do most of these people no harm to follow the advice given +by Abernethy, the great English physician, to a pampered, overfed +hyper-sensitive: Live on six pence a day _and earn it_. I have found +few hyper-sensitives among the poor. Poverty is a fine cure for most +cases, though there are those who cling to their pride of birth of +education, or God knows what of insane belief in their superiority +over ordinary mortals, and make that the occasion, or cause, of the +innumerable and fretting worries of hyper-sensitiveness. + +Another serious cause of worry, in this busy, bustling, rapid age, +is the need we feel for hurry. We are caught in the mad rush and +its influence leads us to feel that we, too, must rush. There is no +earthly reason for our hurry, and yet we cannot seem to help it. + +Hurry means worry. Rush spells fret. Haste makes waste. You live in +the country and are a commuter. You must be in the city on the stroke +of nine. To do this, you must catch the 8:07. You have your breakfast +to get and it takes six minutes to walk to the station. No one can do +it comfortably in less. Yet every morning, ever since you took this +country cottage, you have had to rush through your breakfast, and rush +to the depot in order to catch the train. Thus starting the day on the +rush, you have continued "on the stretch" all day, and get back home +at night tired out, fretted and worried "almost to death." Even when +you sit down to breakfast, you begin to worry if wifie doesn't have +everything ready. You know you'll be late. You feel it, and if the +toast and coffee are not on the table the moment you sit down, your +querelous complaints strike the morning air. + +Now what's the use? + +Why don't you get up ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes earlier, and thus +give yourself time to eat comfortably, and thus get over the worry of +your rush? Set the alarm clock for 7:00, or 6:45, or even 6:30. Far +better get up half an hour too early, than worry yourself, your wife, +and the whole household by your insane hurry. Your worry is wholly +unnecessary and shows a fearful lack of simple intelligence. + +Annie Laurie, who writes many sage counsels in the _San Francisco +Examiner_, had an excellent article on this subject in the issue of +December 31, 1915. She wrote: + +Here is something that I saw out my window--it has given me the big +thought for my biggest New Year's resolution. The man at the corner +house ran down the steps in a terrible hurry. He saw the car coming +up the hill and whistled to it from the porch, but the man who was +running the car did not hear the whistle. Anyway, he didn't stop the +car, and the man on the steps looked as if he'd like to catch the +conductor of that car and do something distinctly unfriendly to +him, and do it right then and there. He jammed his hat down over his +forehead and started walking very fast. + +"What's your hurry?" said the man he was passing on the corner. +"What's your hurry, Joe?" and the man on the corner held out his hand. + +"Well, I'll be--," said Joe, and he held out his hand, too, "if it +isn't--" + +And it was, and they both laughed and shook hands and clapped each +other on the back and shook hands again. + +"What's your hurry?" said the man on the corner again. + +"I dun-no," said the man who was so cross because he'd lost his car. +"Nothing much, I guess," and he laughed and the other man laughed and +they shook hands again. And the last I saw of them they had started +down the street right In the opposite direction from which the man in +the hurry had started to go, and they weren't in a hurry at all. + +Do you know what I wished right then and there? I wished that every +time I get into the senseless habit of rushing everywhere and tearing +through everything as if it was my last day on earth and there +wasn't a minute left to lose, somebody would stop me on the corner of +whatever street of circumstance I may be starting to cross and say to +me in friendly fashion: + +"What's the hurry?" + +What is the hurry, after all? Where are we all going? What for? + +What difference does it make whether I read my paper at 8 o'clock in +the morning or at half-past 9? + +Will the world stop swinging in its orbit if I don't meet just so +many people a day, write so many letters, hear so many lectures, skim +through so many books? Of course if I'm earning my living I must work +for it and work not only honestly but hard. But it seems to me that +most of the terrific hurrying we do hasn't much to do with really +essential work after all. It's a kind of habit we get into, a sort of +madness, like the thing that overtakes the crowd at a ferry landing or +the entrance to a train. I've seen men, and women, too, fairly fight +to get onto a particular car when the next car would have done just +exactly as well. + +Where are they going in such a hurry? To save a life? To mend a broken +heart? To help to heal a wounded spirit? Or are they just rushing +because the rest do it? + +What do they get out of life--these people who are always in a rush? + +Look! The laurel tree in my California garden is full of bursting +buds! The rains are beginning and the trees will soon be flecked with +a silver veil of blossoms. I hadn't noticed it before. I've been too +busy. + +What's your hurry? Come, friend of my heart, I'll say that to you +to-day and say it in deep and friendly earnest. + + What's your hurry? Come, let's go for a walk together and see + if we can find out. Let us keep finding out through all the + new year. + +There are many other causes of worry, some of them so insidious, so +powerful, as to call for treatment in special chapters. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PROTEAN FORMS OF WORRY + + +In a preceding chapter, I have shown that worry is a product of our +modern civilization, and that it belongs only to the Occidental world. +It is a modern disease, prevalent only among the so-called civilized +peoples. There is no doubt that in many respects we _are_ what we call +ourselves--the most highly civilized people in the world. But do we +not pay too high a price for much of our civilization? If it is such +that it fails to enable us to conserve our health, our powers of +enjoyment, our spontaneity, our mental vigor, our spirituality, and +the exuberant radiance of our life--bodily, mental, spiritual--I feel +that we need to examine it carefully and find out wherein lies its +inadequacy or its insufficiency. + +While our civilization has reached some very elevated points, and some +men have made wonderful advancement in varied fields, it cannot be +denied that the mass of men and women are still groping along in +the darkness of mental mediocrity, and on the mud-flats of the +commonplace. Ten thousand men and women can now read where ten alone +read a few centuries ago. But what are the ten thousand reading? That +which will elevate, improve, benefit? See the piles of sensational +yellow novels, magazines, and newspapers that deluge us day by day, +week by week, month by month, for the answer. True, there are many who +desire the better forms of literature, and for these we give thanks; +they are of the salt that saves our civilization. + +I do not wish to seem, even, to be cynical or pessimistic, but when +I look at some of the mental pabulum that our newspapers supply, +I cannot but feel that we are making vast efforts to maintain the +commonplace and dignify the trivial. + +For instance: Look at the large place the Beauty Department of a +newspaper occupies in the thoughts of thousands of women and girls. +Instead of seeking to know what they should do to keep their bodies +and minds healthful and vigorous, they are deeply concerned over +their physical appearance. They write and ask questions that show how +worried they are about their skin--freckles, pimples, discolorations, +patches, etc.--their complexion, their hair, its color, glossiness, +quantity, how it should be dressed, and a thousand and one things that +clearly reveal the _improper emphasis_ placed upon them. I do not wish +to ignore the basic facts behind these anxious questionings. It is +right and proper that women (and men also) should give due attention +to their physical appearance. But when it becomes a mere matter of +the _outward_ show of cosmetics, powders, rouges, washes, pencils, and +things that affect the outside only, then the emphasis is in the wrong +place, and we are worrying about the wrong thing. Our appearance is +mainly the result of our physical and mental condition. If the body +is healthy, the skin and hair will need no especial attention, and, +indeed, every wise person knows that the application of many of +the cosmetics, etc., commonly used, is injurious, if not positively +dangerous. + +Then, too, observation shows that too many women and girls go beyond +reasonable attention to these matters and begin to worry over them. +Once become slaves to worry, and every hour of the day some new +irritant will arise. Some new "dope" is advertised; some new fashion +devised; some new frivolity developed. Vanity and worry now begin +to vie with each other as to which shall annoy and vex, sting and +irritate their victim the more. Each is a nightmare of a different +breed, but no sooner does one bound from the saddle, before the other +puts in an appearance and compels its victim to a performance. Only +a thorough awakening can shake such nightmares off, and comparatively +few have any desire to be awakened. I have watched such victims and +they arouse in me both laughter and sadness. One is sure her hair +is not the proper color to match her complexion and eyes. It must +be dyed. Then follows the worries as to what dye she shall use, and +methods of application. Invariably the results produce worry, for they +are never satisfactory, and now she is worried while dressing, while +eating, and when she goes out into the street, lest people notice that +her hair is improperly dyed. Every stranger that looks at her adds to +the worry, for it confirms her previous fears that she does not look +all right. If she tries another hair of the dog that has already +bitten her and allows the hair specialist to guide her again, she goes +through more worries of similar fashion. She must treat her hair in a +certain way to conform to prevailing styles--and so she worries hourly +over a matter that, at the outside, should occupy her attention for a +few minutes of each day. + +There are men who are equally worried over their appearance. Their +hair is not growing properly, or their ears are not the proper shape, +or their ears are too large, or their hands are too rough, or their +complexion doesn't match the ties they like to wear, or some equally +foolish and nonsensical thing. Some wish to be taller, others not so +tall; quite an army seeks to be thinner and another of equal numbers +desires to be stouter; some wish they were blondes, and others that +they were brunettes. The result is that drug-stores, beauty-parlors, +and complexion specialists for men and women are kept busy all their +time, robbing poor, hard-working creatures of their earnings because +of insane worries that they are not appearing as well as they ought to +do. + +Clothing is a perpetual source of worry to thousands. They must keep +up with the styles, the latest fashions, for to be "out of fashion," +"a back number," gives them "a conniption fit." An out-of-date hat, +or shirt-waist, jacket, coat, skirt, or shoe humiliates and distresses +them more than would a violation of the moral law--provided it were +undetected. + +To these, my worrying friends, I continually put the question: Is it +worth while? Is the game worth the shot? What do you gain for all +your worry? Rest and peace of mind? Alas, no! If the worry and effort +accomplished anything, I would be the last to deprecate it, but +observation and experience have taught me that _the more you yield +to these demons of vanity and worry, the more relentlessly they harry +you_. They veritably are demons that seize you by the throat and hang +on like grim death until they suffocate and strangle you. + +Do you propose, therefore, any longer to submit? Are you wilfully and +knowingly going to allow yourself to remain within their grasp? +You have a remedy in your own hands. Kill your foolish vanity by +determining to accept yourself as you are. All the efforts in the +world will not make any changes worth while. Fix upon the habits of +dress, etc., that good sense tells you are reasonable and in accord +with your age, your position and your purse, and then follow them +regardless of the fashion or the prevailing style. You know as well as +I that, unless you are a near-millionaire, you cannot possibly keep +up with the many and various changes demanded by current fashion. Then +why worry yourself by trying? Why spend your small income upon the +unattainable, or upon that which, even if you could attain it, you +would find unsatisfying and incomplete? + +In your case, worry is certainly the result of mental inoccupancy. +This is sometimes called "empty headedness," and while the term seems +somewhat harsh and rough, it is pretty near the truth. If you spent +one-tenth the amount of energy seeking to put something _into_ your +head that you spend worrying as to what you shall put _on_ your head, +and how to fix it up, your life would soon be far more different than +you can now conceive. + +Carelessness and laziness are both great causes of worry. The careless +man, the lazy man are each indifferent as to how their work is +done; such men seldom do well that which they undertake. Everything +carelessly or lazily done is incomplete, inadequate, incompetent, and, +therefore, a source of distress, discontent, and worry. A careless or +lazy plumber causes much worry, for, even though his victims may have +learned the lesson I am endeavoring to inculcate throughout these +pages, it is a self-evident proposition that they will not allow his +indifferent work to stand without correction. Therefore, the telephone +bell calls continually, he or his men must go out and do the work +again, and when pay-day comes, he fails to receive the check good work +would surely have made forthcoming to him. + +The schoolboy, schoolgirl, has to learn this lesson, and the sooner +the better. The teacher never nags the careful and earnest student; +only the lazy and careless are worried by extra lessons, extra +recitals, impositions, and the like. + +All through life carelessness and laziness bring worry, and he is +a wise person who, as early as he discovers these vices in himself, +seeks to correct or, better still, eliminate them. + +Another form of worry is that wherein the worrier is sure that no +one is to be relied upon to do his duty. Dickens, in his immortal +_Pickwick Papers_, gives a forceful example of this type. Mr. Magnus +has just introduced himself to Pickwick, and they find they are both +going to Norwich on the same stage. + + 'Now, gen'lm'n,' said the hostler, 'Coach is ready, if you + please.' + + 'Is all my luggage in?' inquired Magnus. + + 'All right, Sir.' + + 'Is the red bag in?' + + 'All right, Sir.' + + 'And the striped bag?' + + 'Fore boot, Sir.' + + 'And the brown-paper parcel?' + + 'Under the seat, Sir.' + + 'And the leathern hat-box?' + + 'They're all in, Sir.' + + 'Now will you get up?' said Mr. Pickwick. + + 'Excuse me,' replied Magnus, standing on the wheel. 'Excuse + me, Mr. Pickwick, I cannot consent to get up in this state of + uncertainty. I am quite satisfied from that man's manner, that + that leather hat-box is not in.' + + The solemn protestations of the hostler being unavailing, the + leather hat-box was obliged to be raked up from the lowest + depth of the boot, to satisfy him that it had been safely + packed; and after he had been assured on this head, he felt a + solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was mislaid, and + next, that the striped bag had been stolen, and then that the + brown-paper parcel had become untied. At length when he had + received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each + and every one of these suspicions, he consented to climb up + to the roof of the coach, observing that now he had taken + everything off his mind he felt quite comfortable and happy. + +But this was only a temporary feeling, for as they journeyed along, +every break in the conversation was filled up by Mr. Magnus's "loudly +expressed anxiety respecting the safety and well-being of the two +bags, the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel." + +Of course, this is an exaggerated picture, yet it properly suggests +and illustrates this particular, senseless form of worry, with which +we are all more or less familiar. In business, such a worrier is a +constant source of irritation to all with whom he comes in contact, +either as inferior or superior. To his inferiors, his worrying is +a bedeviling influence that irritates and helps produce the very +incapacity for attention to detail that is required; and to superiors, +it is a sure sign of incompetency. Experience demonstrates that such +an one is incapable of properly directing any great enterprise. Men +must be trusted if you would bring out their capacities. Their work +should be specifically laid out before them; that is, that which is +required of them; not, necessarily, in minute detail, but the general +results that are to be achieved. Then give them their freedom to work +the problems out in their own way. Give them responsibility, trust +them, and then leave them alone. _Quit your worrying_ about them. Give +them a fair chance, expect, demand results, and if they fail, fire +them and get those who are more competent. Mistrust and worry in the +employer lead to uncertainty and worry in the employee and these soon +spell out failure. + +In subsequent chapters, various worries are discussed, with their +causes and cures. One thing I cannot too strongly and too often +emphasize, and that is, that the more one studies the worries referred +to, he is compelled to see the great truth of the proverb, "More of +our worries come from within than from without." In other words, we +make more of our worries, by worrying, than are made for us by the +cares of life. This fact in itself should lead us to be suspicious of +every worry that besets us. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +HEALTH WORRIES + + +There is an army, whose numbers are legion, who worry about their +health and that of the members of their family. What with the doctors +scaring the life out of them with the germ theory, seeking to obtain +legislation to vaccinate them, examine their children nude in school, +take out their tonsils, appendices, and other internal organs, inject +serums into them for this, that, and the other, and requiring them to +observe a score and one maxims which they do not understand, there +is no wonder they are worried. Then when one considers the army of +physicians who feel it to be their duty to write of sickness for the +benefit of the people, who give detailed symptoms of every disease +known; and of the larger army of quacks who deliberately live and +fatten themselves upon the worries they can create in the minds of +the ignorant, the vicious and the diseased; of the patent-medicine +manufacturers, who spend millions of dollars annually in scaring +people into the use of their nostrums--none of which are worth the +cost of the paper with which they are wrapped up--is there any wonder +that people, who are not trained to think, should be worried. Worries +meet them on every hand, at every corner. Do they feel an ache or +a pain? According to such a doctor, or such a patent-medicine +advertisement, that is a dangerous symptom which must be checked at +once or the most fearful results will ensue. + +Then there are the naturopaths, physicultopaths, gymnastopaths, +hygienists, raw food advocates, and a thousand and one other +notionists, who give advice as to what, when, and how you shall +eat. Horace Fletcher insists that food be chewed until it is liquid; +another authority says, "Bosh!" to this and asks you to look at the +dog who bolts his meat and is still healthy, vigorous and strong. The +raw food advocate assures you that the only good food is uncooked, and +that you take out this, that, and the other by cooking, all of which +are essential to the welfare of the body. Between these _natural +authorities_ and the _medical authorities_, there is a great deal of +warfare going on all the time, and the layman knows not wherein true +safety lies. Is it any wonder that he is worried. + +Many members of the medical profession and the drug-stores have +themselves to thank for this state of perpetual worriment and mental +unrest. They inculcated, nurtured, and fostered a colossal ignorance +in regard to the needs of the body, and a tremendous dread and blind +fear of everything that seems the slightest degree removed from the +everyday normal. They have persistently taught those who rely upon +them that the only safe and wise procedure is to rush immediately to +a physician upon the first sign of anything even slightly out of the +ordinary. Then, with wise looks, mysterious words, strange symbols, +and loathsome decoctions, they have sent their victims home to imagine +that some marvelous wonder work will follow the swallowing of their +abominable mixtures instead of frankly and honestly telling their +consultants that their fever was caused by overeating, by too late +hours, by dancing in an ill-ventilated room, by too great application +to business, by too many cocktails, or too much tobacco smoking. + +The results are many and disastrous. People become confirmed +"worriers" about their health. On the slightest suspicion of an +ache or a pain, they rush to the doctor or the drug-store for a +prescription, a dose, a powder, a potion, or a pill. The telephone is +kept in constant operation about trivialities, and every month a bill +of greater or lesser extent has to be paid. + +While I do not wish to deprecate the calling in of a physician in any +serious case, by those who deem it advisable, I do condemn as absurd, +unnecessary, and foolish in the highest degree, this perpetual worry +about trivial symptoms of health. Every truthful physician will +frankly tell you--if you ask him--that worrying is often the worst +part of the trouble; in other words, that if you never did a thing +in these cases that distress you, but would quit your worrying, the +discomfort would generally disappear of its own accord. + +One result of this kind of worry is that it genders a nervousness +that unnecessarily calls up to the mind pictures of a large variety +of possible dangers. Who has not met with this nervous species of +worrier? + +The train enters a tunnel: "What an awful place for a wreck!" Or it is +climbing a mountain grade with a deep precipice on one side: "My, if +we were to swing off this grade!" I have heard scores of people, who, +on riding up the Great Cable Incline of the Mount Lowe Railway, have +exclaimed: "What would become of us if this cable were to break?" and +they were apparently people of reason and intelligence. The fact is, +the cable is so strong and heavy that with two cars crowded to the +utmost, their united weight is insufficient to stretch the cable +tight, let alone putting any strain upon it sufficient to break it. +And most nervous worries are as baseless as this. + +"Yet," says some apologist for worries, "accidents do happen. Look +at the _Eastland_ in Chicago, and the loss of the _Titanic_. Railways +have wrecks, collisions, and accidents. Horses do run away. Dogs do +bite. People do become sick!" + +Granted without debate or discussion. But if everybody on board the +wrecked vessels had worried for six months beforehand, would their +worries have prevented the wrecks? Mind you, I say worry, not proper +precaution. The shipping authorities, all railway officials and +employees, etc., should be as alert as possible to guard against all +accidents. But this can be done without one moment's worry on the part +of a solitary human being, and care is as different from worry as gold +is from dross, coal from ashes. By all means, take due precautions; +study to avoid the possibility of accidents, but do not give worry a +place in your mind for a moment. + +A twin brother to this health-worrier is the nervous type, who is +sure that every dog loose on the streets is going to bite; every horse +driven behind is surely going to run away; every chauffeur is +either reckless, drunk, or sure to run into a telegraph pole, have +a collision with another car, overturn his car at the corner, or run +down the crossing pedestrian; every loitering person is a tramp, who +is a burglar in disguise; every stranger is an enemy, or at least must +be regarded with suspicion. Such worriers always seem to prefer to +look on the dark side of the unknown rather than on the bright side. +"Think no evil!" is good philosophy to apply to everything, as well as +genuine religion--when put into practice. The world is in the control +of the Powers of Good, and these seek our good, not our disaster. Have +faith in the goodness of the powers that be, and work and live to help +make your faith true. The man who sees evil where none exists, will do +more to call it into existence than he imagines, and equally true, or +even more so, is the converse, that he who sees good where none seems +to exist, will call it forth, bring it to the surface. + +The teacher, who imagines that all children are mean and are merely +waiting for a chance to exercise that meanness, will soon justify his +suspicions and the children will become what he imagines them to be. +Yet such a teacher often little realizes that it has been his own +wicked fears and worries that helped--to put it mildly--the evil +assert itself. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WORRIES OF PARENTS + + +A worrying parent is at once an exasperating and a pathetic figure. +She--for it is generally the mother--is so undeniably influenced by +her love that one can sympathize with her anxiety, yet the confidant +of her child, or the unconcerned observer is exasperated as he clearly +sees the evil she is creating by her foolish, unnecessary worries. + +The worries of parents are protean, as are all other worries, and +those herein named must be taken merely as suggestions as to scores of +others that might be catalogued and described in detail. + +Many mothers worry foolishly because their children do not obey, are +not always thoughtful and considerate, and act with wisdom, forgetful +that life is the school for learning. If any worrying is to be done, +let the parent worry over her own folly in not learning how to teach, +or train, her child. Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a +little, there a little, is the natural procedure with children. It +is unreasonable to expect "old heads upon young shoulders." Worry, +therefore, that children have not learned before they are taught is +as senseless as it is demoralizing. Get down to something practical. I +know a mother of a large family of boys and girls. They are as diverse +in character and disposition as one might ever find. She is one of the +wise, sensible, practical mothers, who acts instead of worrying. For +instance, she believes thoroughly in allowing the children to choose +their own clothing. It develops judgment, taste, practicability. One +of the girls was vain, and always wanted to purchase shoes too small +for her, in order that she might have "pretty feet." Each time she +brought home small shoes, her mother sent her back with admonitions to +secure a larger pair. After this had continued for several times, she +decided upon another plan. When the "too small" shoes were brought +home, she compelled the girl to wear them, though they pinched and +hurt, until they were worn out, and, as she said in telling me the +story, "that ended that." + +One of her sons was required to get up every morning and light the +fire. Very often he was lazy and late so that the fire was not lighted +when mother was ready to prepare breakfast. One night he brought home +a companion to spend a day or two. The lads frolicked together so that +they overslept. When mother got up in the morning, there was no fire. +She immediately walked to the foot of the stairs and yelled, "Fire! +Fire! Fire!" at the top of her voice. In a few moments, both lads, +tousled, half-dressed, and well-scared, rushed downstairs, exclaiming: +"Where's the fire? Where's the fire?" "I want it in the stove," was +the mother's answer--and "that was the end of that." + +The oldest girl became insistent that she be allowed to sit up nights +after the others had gone to bed. She would study for awhile and then +put her head on her arms and go to sleep. One night her mother waited +until she was asleep, went off to bed, and left her. At three o'clock +in the morning she came downstairs, lighted lamp in hand, and alarm +clock set to go off. As soon as the alarm-bell began to ring, the +girl awoke, startled to see her mother standing there with the lighted +lamp, herself cold and stiff with the discomfort of her position. "And +that was the end of that," said the mother. + +Here was common-sense, practical, hard-headed training instead of +worry. Bend your sense, your intellect, your time, your energy, to +seeking how to train your children, instead of doing the senseless, +foolish, inane, and utterly useless thing of worrying about them. + +Imagine being the child of an anxious parent, who sees sickness in +every unusual move or mood of her boy or girl. A little clearing of +the throat--"I'm sure he's going to have croup or diphtheria." The +girl unconsciously puts her hand to her brow--"What's the matter with +your head, dearie; got a headache?" A lad feels a trifle uncomfortable +in his clean shirt and wiggles about--"I'm sure Tom's coming down with +fever, he's so restless and he looks so flushed!" + +God forbid that I should ever appear to caricature the wise care of a +devoted mother. That is not what I aim to do. I seek, with intenseness +of purpose, to show the folly, the absurdity of the anxieties, the +worries, the unnecessary and unreasonable cares of many mothers. For +the moment Fear takes possession of them, some kind of nagging is sure +to begin for the child. "Oh, Tom, you mustn't do this," or, "Maggie, +my darling, you must be careful of that," and the child is not only +nagged, but is thus _placed under bondage to the mother's unnecessary +alarm_. No young life can suffer this bondage without injury. It +destroys freedom and spontaneity, takes away that dash and vigor, that +vim and daring that essentially belong to youth, and should be the +unhampered heritage of every child. I'd far rather have a boy and +girl of mine get sick once in a while--though that is by no means +necessary--than have them subjected to the constant fear that +they might be sick. And when boys and girls wake up to the full +consciousness that their parents' worries are foolish, unnecessary, +and self-created, the mental and moral influence upon them is far more +pernicious than many even of our wisest observers have perceived. + +There never was a boy or girl who was worried over, who was not +annoyed, fretted, injured, and cursed by it, instead of being +benefited. The benefit received from the love of the parent was in +spite of the worry, and not because of it. Worry is a hindrance, a +deterrent, a restraint; it is always putting a curbing hand upon the +natural exuberance and enthusiasm of youth. It says, "Don't, don't," +with such fierce persistence, that it kills initiative, destroys +endeavor, murders naturalness, and drives its victims to deception, +fraud, and secrecy to gain what they feel to be natural, reasonable +and desirable ends. + +I verily believe that the parent who forever is saying "Don't" to +her children, is as dangerous as a submarine and as cruel as an +asphyxiating bomb. Life is for _expression_, not _repression_. +Repression is always a proof that a proper avenue for expression has +not yet been found. Quit your "don't-ing," and teach your child to +"do" right. Children absolutely are taught to dread, then dislike, and +finally to hate their parents when they are refused the opportunity of +"doing"--of expressing themselves. + +Rather seek to find ways in which they may be active. Give them +opportunities for pleasure, for employment, for occupation. And +remember this, there is as much distance and difference between +"tolerating," "allowing," "permitting" your children to do things, and +"encouraging," "fostering" in them the desire to do them, as there is +distance between the poles. Don't be a dampener to your children, a +discourager, a "don'ter," a sign the moment you appear that they must +"quit" something, that they must repress their enthusiasm, their fun, +their exuberant frolicsomeness, but let them feel your sympathy with +them, your comradeship, your good cheer, that "Father, Mother, is +a jolly good fellow," and my life for it, you will doubtless save +yourself and them much worry in after years. + +Hans Christian Andersen's story of _The Ugly Duckling_ is one of the +best illustrations of the uselessness and needlessness of much of the +worry of parents with which I am familiar. How the poor mother duck +worried because one of her brood was so large and ugly. At first she +was willing to accept it, but when everybody else jeered at it, pushed +it aside, bit at it, pecked it on the head, and generally abused it, +and the turkey-cock bore down upon it like a ship in full sail, and +gobbled at it, and its brothers and sisters hunted it, grew more and +more angry with it, and wished the cat would get it and swallow it up, +she herself wished it far and far away. And as the worries grew around +the poor duckling, it ran away. It didn't know enough to have faith +in itself and its own future. The result was the worries of others +affected it to the extent of urging it to flee. For the time being +this enlarged its worries, until at length, falling in with a band of +swans, it felt a strange thrill of fellowship with them in spite of +their grand and beautiful appearance, and, soaring into the air after +them, it alighted into the water, and seeing its own reflection, was +filled with amazement and wonder to find itself no longer an ugly +duckling but--a swan. + +Many a mother, father, family generally, have worried over their ugly +duckling until they have driven him, her, out into the world, only to +find out later that their duckling was a swan. And while it was good +for the swan to find out its own nature, the points I wish to make +are that there was no need for all the worry--it was the sign of +ignorance, of a want of perception--and further, the swan would have +developed in its home nest just as surely as it did out in the world, +and would have been saved all the pain and distress its cruel family +visited upon it. + +There is still another story, which may as well be introduced here, as +it applies to the unnecessary worry of parents about their young. In +this case, it was a hen that sat on a nest of eggs. When the chickens +were hatched, they all pleased the mother hen but one, and he rushed +to the nearest pond, and, in spite of her fret, fuss, fume, and worry, +insisted upon plunging in. In vain the hen screamed out that he +would drown, her unnatural child was resolved to venture, and to the +amazement of all, he floated perfectly, for he was a duck instead of a +chicken, and his egg was placed under the old hen by mistake. + +Mother, father, don't worry about your child. It may be he is a swan; +he may be a duck, instead of the creature you anticipated. Control +your fretfulness and your worry for it cannot possibly change things. +Wait and watch developments and a few days may reveal enough to you +to show you how totally unnecessary all your worries would have been. +Teach yourself to know that worry is evil thought directed either +upon our own bodies or minds, or those of others. Note, I say _evil_ +thought. It is not good thought. Good thought so directed would be +helpful, useful, beneficial. This is injurious, harmful, baneful. Evil +thought, worry, directs to the person, or to that part of the body +considered, an injurious and baneful influence that produces pain, +inharmony, unhappiness. It is as if one were to divert a stream of +corroding acid upon a sensitive wound, and do it because we wished to +heal the wound. Worry never once healed a wound, or cured an ill. It +always aggravates, irritates, and, furthermore, helps superinduce the +evil the worrier is afraid of. The fact that you worry about these +things to which I have referred, that you yield your thoughts to them, +and, in your worry, give undue contemplation to them, induces the +conditions you wish to avoid or avert. Hence, if you wish your child +to be well and strong, brave and courageous, it is the height of +cruelty for you to worry over his health, his play, or his exercise. +Better by far leave him alone than bring upon him the evils you dread. +Who has not observed, again and again, the evil that has come from +worrying mothers who were constantly cautioning or forbidding their +children to do that which every natural and normal child longs to +do? Quit your worrying. Leave your child alone. Better by far let +him break a rib, or bruise his nose, than all the time to live in the +bondage of your fears. + +Elsewhere I have referred to the fact that we often bring upon our +loved ones the perils we fear. There is a close connection between +our mental states and the objects with which we are surrounded. +Or, mayhap, it would be more correct to say that it is our mental +condition that shapes the actions of those around us in relation to +the things by which they are surrounded. Let me illustrate with an +incident which happened in my own observation. A small boy and girl +had a nervous, ever worrying mother. She was assured that her boy +was bound to come to physical ill, for he was so courageous, so +adventuresome, so daring. To her he was the duck instead of the +chicken she thought she was hatching out. One day he climbed to the +roof of the barn. His sister followed him. The two were slowly, and +in perfect security, "inching" along on the comb of the roof, when the +mother happened to catch sight of them. With a scream of half terror +and half anger, she shouted to them to come down _at once!_ Up to +that moment, I had watched both children with comfort, pleasure, and +assurance of their perfect safety. Their manifest delight in their +elevated position, the pride of the girl in her pet brother's courage, +and his scarcely concealed surprise and pleasure that she should dare +to follow him, were interesting in the extreme. But the moment that +foolish mother's scream rent the air, everything changed instanter. +Both children became nervous, the boy started down the roof, where he +could drop upon a lower roof to safety. His little sister, however, +started down too soon. Her mother's fears unnerved her and she slid, +and falling some twenty-five feet or so, broke her arm. + +Then--and here was the cruel fatuity of the whole proceeding--the +mother began to wail and exclaim to the effect that it was just what +she expected. May I be pardoned for calling her a worrying fool. She +could not see that it was her very expectation, and giving voice to +it, in her hourly worryings and in that command that they come down, +that caused the accident. She, herself, alone was to blame; her +unnecessary worry was the cause of her daughter's broken arm. + +Christ's constant incitement to his disciples was "Be not afraid!" +He was fully aware of the fact that Job declared: "The thing which I +greatly feared is come upon me." + +Hence, worrying mother, curb your worry, kill it, drive it out, for +_your child's sake_. You claim it is for your child's good that +you worry. You are wrong. It is because you are too thoughtless, +faithless, and trustless that you worry, and, if you will pardon me, +_too selfish_. If, instead of giving vent to that fear, worry, +dread, you exercised your reason and faith a little more, and then +self-denial, and refused to give vocal expression to your worry, you +could then claim unselfishness in the interest of your child. But to +put your fears and worries, your dreads and anxieties, around a young +child, destroying his exuberance and joy, surrounding him with the +mental and spiritual fogs that beset your own life is neither wise, +kind, nor unselfish. + +Another serious worry that besets many parents is that pertaining +to the courtship or engagement of their children. Here again let me +caution my readers not to construe my admonitions into indifference +to this important epoch in their child's life. I would have them +lovingly, wisely, sagely advise. But there is a vast difference +between this, and the uneasy, fretful, nagging worries that beset so +many parents and which often lead to serious friction. Remember that +it is your child, not you, who has to be suited with a life partner. +The girl who may call forth his warmest affection may be the last +person in the world you would have chosen, yet you are not the one to +be concerned. + +In the January, 1916, _Ladies' Home Journal_ there is an excellent +editorial bearing upon this subject, as follows: + + A mother got to worrying about the girl to whom her son had + become engaged. She was a nice girl, but the mother felt + that perhaps she was not of a type to stimulate the son + sufficiently in his career. The mother wisely said nothing, + however, until two important facts dawned upon her: + + First, that possibly her boy was of the order which did + not need stimulation. As she reflected upon his nature, + his temperament, she arrived at the conclusion that what he + required in a life partner might be someone who would prove a + poultice rather than a mustard plaster or a fly blister. + + This was her first discovery. + + The second was not precisely like unto it, but was even more + important--that the son, and not the mother, was marrying the + girl. The question as to whether or not the girl would suit + the mother as a permanent companion was a minor consideration + about which she need not vex her soul. The point he had + settled for himself was that here, by God's grace, was the + one maid for him; and since that had been determined the + wise course was for the mother not to waste time and energy + bemusing (worrying) herself over the situation, especially as + the girl offered no fundamental objections. + + Thus the mother, of herself, learned a lesson that many + another mother might profitably learn. + +How wonderfully in his _Saul_ does Robert Browning set forth the +opposite course to that of the worrier. Here, the active principle +of love and trust are called upon so that it uplifts and blesses its +object. David is represented as filled with a great love for Saul, +which would bring happiness to him. He strives in every way to make +Saul happy, yet the king remains sad, depressed, and unhappy. At +last David's heart and his reason grasp the one great fact of God's +transcending love, and the poem ends with a burst of rapture. His +discovery is that, if his heart is so full of love to Saul, that in +his yearning for his good, he would give him everything, what must +God's love for him be? Of his own love he cries: + + Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, + I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and + this; + + I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, + At this moment,--had love but the warrant love's heart to + dispense. + +Then, when God's magnificent love bursts upon him he sings in joy: + + --What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? When doors great and small + + Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appall? + +How utterly absurd, on the face of it, is such a supposition. God +having given so much will surely continue to give. His love so far +proven so great, it _will never cease_. + +O! doubting heart of man, of woman, of father, of mother, grieving +over the mental and spiritual lapses of a loved one, grasp this +glorious fact--God's love far transcends thine own. What thou wouldst +do for thy loved one is a minute fraction of what He can do, will do, +_is doing_. Rest in His love. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee; +and in His hands all whom thou lovest are safe. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MARITAL WORRIES + + +I now approach a difficult part of my subject, yet I do it without +trepidation, fear, or worry as to results. There are, to my mind, a +few fundamental principles to be considered and observed, and each +married couple must learn to fight the battle out for themselves. + +Undoubtedly, to most married people, the ideal relationship is where +each is so perfectly in accord with the other--they think alike, +agree, are as one mentally--that there are no irritations, no +differences of opinion, no serious questions to discuss. + +Others have a different ideal. They do not object to differences, +serious, even, and wide. They are so thorough believers in the +sanctity of the individuality of each person--that every individual +must live his own life, and thus learn his own lessons, that what they +ask is a love large enough, big enough, sympathetic enough, to embrace +all differences, and in confidence that the "working out" process will +be as sure for one as the other, to rest, content and serene in each +other's love in spite of the things that otherwise would divide them. + +This mental attitude, however, requires a large faith in God, a +wonderful belief in the good that is in each person, and a forbearing +wisdom that few possess. Nevertheless, it is well worth striving +for, and its possession is more desirable than many riches. And how +different the outlook upon life from that of the marital worrier. +When a couple begin to live together, they have within themselves +the possibilities of heaven or of hell. The balance between the two, +however, is very slight. There is only a foot, or less, in difference, +between the West and the East on the Transcontinental Divide. I have +stood with one foot in a rivulet the waters of which reached the +Pacific, and the other in one which reached the Atlantic. The marital +divide is even finer than that. It is all in the habit of mind. If one +determines that he, she, will guide, boss, direct, control the other, +one of two or three things is sure to occur. + +I. The one mind _will_ control the other, and an individual will live +some one else's life instead of its own. This is the popular American +notion of the life of the English wife. She has been trained during +the centuries to recognize her husband as lord and master, and she +unquestionably and unhesitatingly obeys his every dictate. Without at +all regarding this popular conception as an accurate one, nationally, +it will serve the purpose of illustration. + +II. The second alternative is one of sullen submission. If one hates +to "row," to be "nagged," he, she, submits, but with a bad grace, +consumed constantly with an inward rebellion, which destroys love, +leads to cowardly subterfuges, deceptions, and separations. + +III. The third outcome is open rebellion, and the results of this are +too well known to need elucidation--for whatever they may be, they +are disastrous to the peace, happiness, and content of the family +relationship. + +Yet to show how hard it is to classify actual cases in any formal way, +let me here introduce what I wrote long ago about a couple whom I +have visited many times. It is a husband and wife who are both +geniuses--far above the ordinary in several lines. They have +money--made by their own work--the wife's as well as the husband's, +for she is an architect and builder of fine homes. While they have +great affection one for another, there is a constant undertone of +worry in their lives. Each is too critical of the other. They worry +about trifles. Each is losing daily the sweetness of sympathetic and +joyous comradeship because they do not see eye to eye in all things. +Where a mutual criticism of one's work is agreed upon, and is mutually +acceptable and unirritating, there is no objection to it. Rather +should it be a source of congratulation that each is so desirous of +improving that criticism is welcomed. But, in many cases, it is a +positive and injurious irritant. One meets with criticism, neither +kind nor gentle, out in the world. In the home, both man and woman +need tenderness, sympathy, comradeship--and if there be weaknesses +or failures that are openly or frankly confessed, there should be +the added grace and virtue of compassion without any air of pitying +condescension or superiority. By all means help each other to mend, to +improve, to reach after higher, noble things, but don't do it by +the way of personal criticism, advice, remonstrance, fault-finding, +worrying. If you do, you'll do far more harm than good in ninety-nine +cases out of every hundred. Every human being instinctively, in such +position, consciously or unconsciously, places himself in the attitude +of saying: "I am what I am! Now recognize that, and leave me alone! +My life is mine to learn its lessons in my own way, just the same as +yours is to learn your lessons in your way." This worrying about, and +of each other has proven destructive of much domestic happiness, and +has wrecked many a marital barque, that started out with sails set, +fair wind, and excellent prospects. + +Don't worry about each other--_help_ each other by the loving sympathy +that soothes and comforts. Example is worth a million times more than +precept and criticism, no matter how lovingly and wisely applied, +and few men and women are wise enough to criticise and advise +_perpetually_, without giving the recipient the feeling that he is +being "nagged." + +Granted that, from the critic's standpoint, every word said may be +true, wise, and just. This does not, by any means, make it wise to +say it. The mental and spiritual condition of the recipient _must_ be +considered as of far more importance than the condition of the giver +of the wise exhortations. The latter is all right, he doesn't need +such admonitions; the other does. The important question, therefore, +should be: "Is he ready to receive them?" If not, if the time is +unpropitious, the mental condition inauspicious, better do, say, +nothing, than make matters worse. But, unfortunately, it generally +happens that at such times the critic is far more concerned at +unbosoming himself of his just and wise admonitions than he is as to +whether the time is ripe, the conditions the best possible, for the +word to be spoken. The sacred writer has something very wise and +illuminating to say upon this subject. Solomon says: "A word spoken in +due season, how good is it!" Note, however, that it must be spoken "in +due season," to be good. The same word spoken out of season may be, +and often is, exceedingly bad. Again he says: "A word fitly spoken +is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." But it must be _fitly_ +spoken to be worthy to rank with apples of gold. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE WORRY OF THE SQUIRREL CAGE + + +Reference has already been made to _The Squirrel Cage_, by Dorothy +Canfield. Better than any book I have read for a long time, it reveals +the causes of much of the worry that curses our modern so-called +civilized life. These causes are complex and various. They include +_vanity, undue attention to what our neighbors think of us, a false +appreciation of the values of things_, and they may all be summed +up into what I propose to call--with due acknowledgement to Mrs. +Canfield--_the Worry of the Squirrel Cage_. + +I will let the author express her own meaning of this latter term. If +the story leading up seems to be long please seek to read it in the +light of this expression:[A] + +[Footnote A: Reprinted from "The Squirrel-Cage" by Dorothy Canfield +($1.35 net); published by Henry Holt and Company, New York City.] + + When Mr. and Mrs. Emery, directly after their wedding in a + small Central New York village, had gone West to Ohio, + they had spent their tiny capital in building a small + story-and-a-half cottage, ornamented with the jig-saw work and + fancy turning popular in 1872, and this had been the nucleus + of their present rambling, picturesque, many-roomed home. + Every step in the long series of changes which had led from + its first state to its last had a profound and gratifying + significance for the Emerys and its final condition, + prosperous, modern, sophisticated, with the right kind of + wood work in every room that showed, with the latest, most + unobtrusively artistic effects in decoration, represented + their culminating well-earned position in the inner circle of + the best society of Endbury. + + Moreover, they felt that just as the house had been attained + with effort, self-denial, and careful calculations, yet still + without incurring debt, so their social position had been + secured by unremitting diligence and care, but with no loss of + self-respect or even of dignity. They were honestly proud of + both their house and of their list of acquaintances and saw + no reason to regard them as less worthy achievements of an + industrious life than their four creditable grown-up children + or Judge Emery's honorable reputation at the bar. + + The two older children, George and Marietta, could remember + those early struggling days with as fresh an emotion as + that of their parents. Indeed, Marietta, now a competent, + sharp-eyed matron of thirty-two, could not see the most + innocuous colored lithograph without an uncontrollable wave + of bitterness, so present to her mind was the period when they + painfully groped their way out of chromos. + + The particular Mrs. Hollister who, at the time the Emerys + began to pierce the upper crust, was the leader of Endbury + society, had discarded chromos as much as five years before. + Mrs. Emery and Marietta, newly admitted to the honor of her + acquaintance, wondered to themselves at the cold monotony of + her black and white engravings. The artlessness of this wonder + struck shame to their hearts when they chanced to learn that + the lady had repaid it with a worldly-wise amusement at their + own highly-colored waterfalls and snow-capped mountain-peaks. + Marietta could recall as piercingly as if it were yesterday, + in how crestfallen a chagrin she and her mother had gazed at + their parlor after this incident, their disillusioned eyes + open for the first time to the futility of its claim to + sophistication. As for the incident that had led to the + permanent retiring from their table of the monumental + salt-and-pepper 'caster' which had been one of their + most prized wedding presents, the Emerys refused to allow + themselves to remember it, so intolerably did it spell + humiliation. + +In these quotations the reader has the key to the situation--worry to +become as good as one's neighbors, if not better. _This is the worry +of the squirrel cage_. + +Lydia is Mrs. Emery's baby girl, her pet, her passionate delight. +She has been away to a fine school. She knows nothing of the ancient +struggles to attain position and a high place in society. Those +struggles were practically over before she appeared on the scene. + +On the occasion of her final home-coming her mother makes great +preparations to please her, yet the worry and the anxiety, are +revealed in her conversation with her older daughter: + + 'Oh, Marietta, how _do_ you suppose the house will seem + to Lydia after she has seen so much? I hope she won't be + disappointed. I've done so much to it this last year, perhaps + she won't like it. And oh, I _was_ so tired because we weren't + able to get the new sideboard put up in the dining-room + yesterday!' + + 'Really, Mother, you must draw the line about Lydia. She's + only human. I guess if the house is good enough for you and + father it is good enough for her.' + + 'That's just it, Marietta--that's just what came over me! + _Is_ what's good enough for us good enough for Lydia? Won't + anything, even the best, in Endbury be a come-down for her?' + +The attainments of Mrs. Emery both as to wealth and social position, +however, were not reached by her daughter Marietta and her husband, +but in the determination to make it appear as if they were, Marietta +thus exposes her own life of worry in a talk with her father: + + 'Keeping up a two-maid and a man establishment on a one-maid + income, and mostly not being able to hire the one maid. There + aren't _any_ girls to be had lately. It means that I have to + be the other maid and the man all of the time, and all three, + part of the time.' She was starting down the step, but paused + as though she could not resist the relief that came from + expression. 'And the cost of living--the necessities are bad + enough, but the other things--the things you have to have not + to be out of everything! I lie awake nights. I think of it + in church. I can't think of anything else but the way + the expenses mount up. Everybody getting so reckless and + extravagant and I _won't_ go in debt! I'll come to it, though. + Everybody else does. We're the only people that haven't + oriental rugs now. Why, the Gilberts--and everybody knows how + much they still owe Dr. Melton for Ellen's appendicitis, + and their grocer told Ralph they owe him several hundred + dollars--well, they have just got an oriental rug that they + paid a hundred and sixty dollars for. Mrs. Gilbert said they + 'just _had_ to have it, and you can always have what you have + to have.' It makes me sick! Our parlor looks so common! And + the last dinner party we gave cost--' + +Another phase of the _squirrel cage worry_ is expressed in this terse +paragraph: + + 'Father keeps talking about getting one of those + player-pianos, but Mother says they are so new you can't tell + what they are going to be. She says they may get to be too + common.' + +Bye and bye it comes Lydia's turn to decide what place she and her new +husband are to take in Endbury society, and here is what one frank, +sensible man says about it: + + 'It may be all right for Marietta Mortimer to kill herself + body and soul by inches to keep what bores her to death to + have--a social position in Endbury's two-for-a-cent society, + but, for the Lord's sake, why do they make such a howling + and yelling just at the tree when Lydia's got the tragically + important question to decide as to whether that's what _she_ + wants? It's like expecting her to do a problem in calculus in + the midst of an earthquake.' + +And the following chapter is a graphic presentation as to how Lydia +made her choice "in perfect freedom"--oh, the frightful sarcasm of the +phrase--during the excitement of the wedding preparations and under +the pressure of expensive gifts and the ideas of over enthusiastic +"society" friends. + +Lydia now began her own "squirrel-cage" existence, even her husband +urges her into extravagance in spite of her protest by saying, +"Nothing's too good for you. And besides, it's an asset. The mortgage +won't be so very large. And if we're in it, we'll just have to live up +to it. It'll be a stimulus." + +One of the sane characters of the book is dear, lovable, gruff Mr. +Melton, who is Lydia's godfather, and her final awakening is largely +due to him. One day he finds Lydia's mother upstairs sick-a-bed, and +thus breaks forth to his godchild: + + 'About your mother--I know without going upstairs that she is + floored with one or another manifestation of the great disease + of _social-ambitionitis_. But calm yourself. It's not so bad + as it seems when you've got the right doctor, I've practiced + for thirty years among Endbury ladies. They can't spring + anything new on me. I've taken your mother through doily fever + induced by the change from tablecloths to bare tops, through + portiere inflammation, through afternoon tea distemper, + through _art-nouveau_ prostration and mission furniture palsy, + not to speak of a horrible attack of acute insanity over the + necessity of having her maids wear caps. I think you can trust + me, whatever dodge the old malady is working on her.' + +And later in speaking of Lydia's sister he affirms: + + 'Your sister Marietta is not a very happy woman. She has too + many of your father's brains for the life she's been shunted + into. She might be damming up a big river with a finely + constructed concrete dam, and what she is giving all her + strength to is trying to hold back a muddy little trickle with + her bare hands. The achievement of her life is to give on + a two-thousand-a-year income the appearance of having five + thousand like your father. She does it; she's a remarkably + forceful woman, but it frets her. She ought to be in better + business, and she knows it, though she won't admit it.' + +Oh, the pity of it, the woe of it, the horror of it, for it is one of +the curses of our present day society and is one of the causes of +many a man's and woman's physical and mental ruin. In the words of our +author elsewhere: + + They are killing themselves to get what they really don't want + and don't need, and are starving for things they could easily + have by just putting out their hands. + +Where life's struggle is reduced to this kind of thing, there is +little compensation, hence we are not surprised to read that: + + Judge Emery was in the state in which of late the end of the + day's work found him--overwhelmingly fatigued. He had not an + ounce of superfluous energy to answer his wife's tocsin, while + she was almost crying with nervous exhaustion. That Lydia's + course ran smooth through a thousand complications was not + accomplished without an incalculable expenditure of nervous + force on her mother's part. Dr. Melton had several times of + late predicted that he would have his old patient back under + his care again. Judge Emery, remembering this prophecy, was + now moved by his wife's pale agitation to a heart-sickening + mixture or apprehension for her and of recollection of his own + extreme discomfort whenever she was sick. + +Yet in spite of this intense tension, she was unable to stop--felt +she must go on, until finally, a breakdown intervened and she was +compelled to lay by. + +On another page a friend tells of his great-aunt's experience: + + 'She told me that all through her childhood her family was + saving and pulling together to build a fine big house. They + worked along for years until, when she was a young lady, they + finally accomplished it; built a big three-story house that + was the admiration of the countryside. Then they moved in. And + it took the womenfolks every minute of their time, and more + to keep it clean and in order; it cost as much to keep it up, + heated, furnished, repaired, painted and everything the way a + fine house should be, as their entire living used to cost. The + fine big grounds they had laid out to go with the mansion took + so much time to--' + +Finally Lydia herself becomes awakened, startled as she sees what +everybody is trying to make her life become and she bursts out to her +sister: + + 'I'm just frightened of--everything--what everybody expects me + to do, and to go on doing all my life, and never have any + time but to just hurry faster and faster, so there'll be + more things to hurry about, and never talk about anything but + _things!_' She began to tremble and look white, and stopped + with a desperate effort to control herself, though she + burst out at the sight of Mrs. Mortimer's face of despairing + bewilderment. 'Oh, don't tell me you don't see at all what + I mean. I can't say it! But you _must_ understand. Can't we + somehow all stop--_now!_ And start over again! You get muslin + curtains and not mend your lace ones, and Mother stop fussing + about whom to invite to that party--that's going to cost more + than he can afford, Father says--it makes me _sick_ to be + costing him so much. And not fuss about having clothes just + so--and Paul have our house built little and plain, so it + won't be so much work to take care of it and keep it clean. + I would so much rather look after it myself than to have + him kill himself making money so I can hire maids that you + _can't_--you say yourself you can't--and never having any time + to see him. Perhaps if we did, other people might, and we'd + all have more time to like things that make us nicer to like. + +And when her sister tried to comfort her she continued: + + 'You do see what I mean! You see how dreadful it is to look + forward to just that--being so desperately troubled over + things that don't really matter--and--and perhaps having + children, and bringing them to the same thing--when there must + be so many things that do matter!' + +Then, to show how perfectly her sister understood, the author makes +that wise and perceptive woman exclaim: + + 'Mercy! Dr. Melton's right! She's perfectly wild with nerves! + We must get her married as soon as ever we can!' + +Lydia gives a reception. Here is part of the description: + + Standing as they were, tightly pressed in between a number of + different groups, their ears were assaulted by a disjointed + mass of stentorian conversation that gave a singular illusion + as if it all came from one inconceivably voluble source, + the individuality of the voices being lost in the screaming + enunciation which, as Mrs. Sandworth had pointed out, was a + prerequisite of self-expression under the circumstances. + + They heard: '_For over a month and the sleeves were too see + you again at Mrs. Elliott's I'm pouring there from four I've + got to dismiss one with plum-colored bows all along five + dollars a week and the washing out and still impossible! I + was there myself all the time and they neither of thirty-five + cents a pound for the most ordinary ferns and red carnations + was all they had, and we thought it rather skimpy under the + brought up in one big braid and caught down with at Peterson's + they were pink and white with--' ... 'Oh, no, Madeleine! that + was at the Burlingame's_.' Mrs. Sandworth took a running jump + into the din and sank from her brother's sight, vociferating: + '_The Petersons had them of old gold, don't you remember, with + little_--' + + The doctor, worming his way desperately through the masses of + femininity, and resisting all attempts to engage him in the + local fray, emerged at length into the darkened hall where + the air was, as he told himself in a frenzied flight of + imagination, less like a combination of a menagerie and a + perfume shop. Here, in a quiet corner, sat Lydia's father + alone. He held in one hand a large platter piled high with + wafer-like sandwiches, which he was consuming at a Gargantuan + rate, and as he ate, he smiled to himself. + + 'Well, Mr. Ogre,' said the doctor, sitting down beside him + with a gasp of relief; 'let a wave-worn mariner into your den, + will you?' + + Provided with an auditor, Judge Emery's smile broke into an + open laugh. He waved the platter toward the uproar in the next + rooms: 'A boiler factory ain't in it with woman, lovely woman, + is it?' he put it to his friend. + + 'Gracious powers! There's nothing to laugh at in that + exhibition!' the doctor reproved him, with an acrimonious + savagery. 'I don't know which makes me sicker; to stay in + there and listen to them, or come out here and find you + thinking they're _funny_!' + + They are funny!' insisted the Judge tranquilly. 'I stood by + the door and listened to the scraps of talk I could catch, + till I thought I should have a fit. I never heard anything + funnier on the stage.' + + 'Looky here, Nat,' the doctor stared up at him angrily, + 'they're not monkeys in a zoo, to be looked at only on + holidays and then laughed at! They're the other half of a + whole that we're half of, and don't you forget it! Why in the + world should you think it funny for them to do this tomfool + trick all winter and have nervous prostration all summer to + pay for it? You'd lock up a _man_ as a dangerous lunatic if + he spent his life so. What they're like, and what they do with + their time and strength concerns us enough sight more than + what the tariff is, let me tell you.' + + 'I admit that what your wife is like concerns you a whole + lot!' The Judge laughed good-naturedly in the face of the + little old bachelor. 'Don't commence jumping on the American + woman so! I won't stand it! She's the noblest of her sex!' + + 'Do you know why I am bald?' said Dr. Melton, running his hand + over his shining dome. + + 'If I did, I wouldn't admit it,' the Judge put up a cautious + guard, 'because I foresee that whatever I say will be used as + evidence against me.' + + 'I've torn out all my hair in desperation at hearing such men + as you claim to admire and respect and wish to advance the + American woman. You don't give enough thought to her--real + thought--from one year's end to another to know whether you + think she has an immortal soul or not!' + +Later Lydia's husband insists that they give a dinner. + + It was to be a large dinner--large, that is, for Endbury--of + twenty covers, and Lydia had never prepared a table for + so many guests. The number of objects necessary for the + conventional setting of a dinner table appalled her. She was + so tired, and her attention was so fixed on the complicated + processes going on uncertainly in the kitchen, that her brain + reeled over the vast quantity of knives and forks and plates + and glasses needed to convey food to twenty mouths on a festal + occasion. They persistently eluded her attempts to marshal + them into order. She discovered that she had put forks for the + soup--that in some inexplicable way at the plate destined for + an important guest there was a large kitchen spoon of iron, a + wild sort of whimsical humor rose in her from the ferment of + utter fatigue and anxiety. When Paul came in, looking very + grave, she told him with a wavering laugh, 'If I tried as hard + for ten minutes to go to Heaven as I've tried all day to have + this dinner right, I'd certainly have a front seat in the + angel choir. If anybody here to-night is not satisfied, it'll + be because he's harder to please than St. Peter himself.' + +During the evening: + + Lydia seemed to herself to be in an endless bad dream. The + exhausting efforts of the day had reduced her to a sort + of coma of fatigue through which she felt but dully the + successive stabs of the ill-served unsuccessful dinner. At + times, the table, the guests, the room itself, wavered before + her, and she clutched at her chair to keep her balance. She + did not know that she was laughing and talking gaily and + eating nothing. She was only conscious of an intense longing + for the end of things, and darkness and quiet. + +When it was all over and her husband was compelled to recognize that +it had been a failure, his mental attitude is thus expressed: + + He had determined to preserve at all costs the appearance + of the indulgent, non-critical, over-patient husband that he + intensely felt himself to be. No force, he thought grimly, + shutting his jaws hard, should drag from him a word of + his real sentiments. Fanned by the wind of this virtuous + resolution, his sentiments grew hotter and hotter as he walked + about, locking doors and windows, and reviewing bitterly the + events of the evening. If he was to restrain himself from + saying, he would at least allow himself the privilege of + feeling all that was possible to a man deeply injured. + +And that night Lydia felt for the "first time the quickening to life +of her child. And during all that day, until then, she had forgotten +that she was to know motherhood." Can words more forcefully depict the +_worry of the squirrel-cage_ than this--that an unnecessary dinner, +given in unnecessary style, at unnecessary expense, to visitors to +whom it was unnecessary should have driven from her thought, and +doubtless seriously injured, the new life that she was so soon to give +to the world? + +Oh, men and women of divine descent and divine heritage, quit your +squirrel-cage stage of existence. Is life to be one mere whirling +around of the cage of useless toil or pleasure, of mere imagining that +you are doing something? Work with an object. Know your object, that +it is worthy the highest endeavor of a human being, and then pursue it +with a divine enthusiasm that no obstacle can daunt, an ardor that no +weariness can quench. Then it is you will begin to live. There is no +life in _worry_. Worry is a waste of life. If you are a worrier, that +is a proof you (in so far as you worry) do not appreciate the value of +your own life, for a worthy object, a divine enthusiasm, a noble ardor +are in themselves the best possible preventives against worry. They +dignify life above worry. Worry is undignified, petty, paltry. Where +you know you have something to do worth doing, you are conscious of +the Divine Benediction, and who can worry when the smile of God rests +upon him? This is a truism almost to triteness, and yet how few fully +realize it. It is the unworthy potterers with life, the dabblers in +life-stuff, those who blind themselves to their high estate, those who +are unsure of their footing who worry. The true aristocrat is never +worried about his position; the orator convinced of the truth of his +message worries not as to how it will be received; the machinist sure +of his plans hesitates not in the construction of his machinery; +the architect assured of his accuracy pushes on his builders without +hesitancy or question, fear, or alarm; the engineer knowing his engine +and his destination has no heart quiver as he handles the lever. It is +the doubter, the unsure, the aimless, the dabbler, the frivolous, +the dilettante, the uncertain that worry. How nobly Browning set this +forth in his Epilogue: + + What had I on earth to do + With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? + Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel + --Being--Who? + One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, + Never doubted clouds would break, + Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, + Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, + Sleep to wake. + No, at noonday in the bustle of man's worktime + Greet the unseen with a cheer! + Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, + 'Strive and thrive!' cry 'Speed,--fight on, fare ever + There as here!' + +And this is not "mere poetry." Or rather it is because it is "mere +poetry" that it is _real life_. Browning had nearly seventy years of +it. He knew. Where there are those to whom "God has whispered in the +ear," there is no uncertainty, no worry. The musician who knows his +instrument, knows his music, knows his key, and knows his time to play +never hesitates, never falters, never worries. With tone clear, pure, +strong, and certain, he sends forth his melodies or harmonies into +the air. Cannot you, in your daily life, be a true and sure musician? +Cannot you be _certain_--absolutely, definitely certain--of your right +to play the tune of life in the way you have it marked out before you, +and then go ahead and play! Play, in God's name, as God's and man's +music-maker. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RELIGIOUS WORRIES AND WORRIERS + + +Misunderstandings, misconceptions, and ignorance in regard to what +really is religion have caused countless millions to mourn--and worry; +indeed, far more to worry than to mourn. Religion should be a joyous +thing, the bringing of the son and daughter into close relationship +with the Father. Instead, for centuries, it has been a battle for +creeds, for mental assent to certain doctrines, rather than a growth +in brotherhood and loving relationship, and those who could not see +eye to eye with one another deemed it to be their duty to fight and +worry each other--even to their death. + +This is not the place for any theological discussion; nor is it my +intent to present the claims of any church or creed. Each reader must +do that for himself, and the less he worries over it, the better I +think it will be for him. I have read and reread Cardinal Newman's +wonderful _Pro Apologia_--his statement as to why and how he entered +the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, and it has thrilled me with +its pathos and evidence of deep spiritual endeavor. Charles Warren +Stoddard's _Troubled Heart and How It Found Rest_ is another similar +story, though written by an entirely different type of man. Each +of these books revealed the inner thought and life of men who were +worried about religion, and by worry I mean anxious to the point of +abnormality, disturbed, distressed unnecessarily. Yet I would not be +misunderstood. Far be it from me, in this age of gross materialism and +worship of physical power and wealth, to decry in the least a proper +degree of solicitude for one's personal salvation. The religious life +of the individual--the real, deep, personal, hidden, unseen, inner +life of a human soul--is a wonderfully delicate thing, to be touched +by another only with the profoundest love and deepest wisdom. Hence I +have little to say about one's own inner struggles, except to affirm +and reaffirm that wisdom, sanity, and religion itself are _all_ +against worrying about it. Study religion, consider it, accept it, +follow it, earnestly, seriously, and constantly, but do it in a +rational manner, seeking the essentials, accepting them and then +_resting_ in them to the full and utter exclusion of all worry. + +But there is another class of religious worriers, viz., those +who worry themselves about _your_ salvation. Again I would not be +misunderstood, nor thought to decry a certain degree of solicitude +about the spiritual welfare of those we love, but here again the +caution and warning against worry more than ever holds good. Most of +these worriers have found comfort, joy, and peace in a certain line of +thought, which has commended itself to them as _Truth_--the one, +full, complete, indivisible Truth, and it seems most natural for human +nature to be eager that others should possess it. This is the secret +of the zeal of the street Salvationist, whose flaming ardor is bent +on reaching those who seldom, if ever, go to church. The burden of his +cry is that you must flee from the wrath to come--hell--by accepting +the vicarious atonement made by the "blood of Jesus." In season and +out of season, he urges that you "come under the blood." His face is +tense, his brow wrinkled, his eyes strained, his voice raucous, his +whole demeanor full of worry over the salvation of others. + +Another friend is a Seventh Day Adventist, who is full of zeal for the +declaration of the "Third Angel's Message," for he believes that +only by heeding it, keeping sacred the hours from sunset on Friday +to Saturday sunset, in accordance with his reading of the fourth +commandment, and also believing in the speedy second coming of Christ, +can one's soul's salvation be attained. + +The Baptist is assured that his mode of baptism--complete +immersion--is the only one that satisfies the demands of heaven, and +the more rigorous members of the sect refuse communion with those +who have not obeyed, as they see the command. The members of the +"Christian" Church--as the disciples of Alexander Campbell term +themselves--while they assent that they are tied to no creed except +the New Testament, demand immersion as a prerequisite to membership in +their body. The Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, +and many others, are "evangelical" in their belief, as is a large +portion of the Church of England, and its American offshoot, both of +which are known as the Episcopal Church. Another portion, however, of +this church is known as "ritualistic," and the two branches in England +recently became so involved in a heated discussion as to the propriety +of certain of their bishops partaking in official deliberations with +ministers of the other, but outside, evangelistic churches, that for a +time it seemed as if the whole Episcopal Church would be disrupted by +the fierceness and anger gendered in the differences of opinion. + +To my own mind, all this worry was much ado about nothing. Each man's +brain and conscience must guide him in matters of this kind, and the +worry, fret, stew, evolved out of the matter, seem to me a proof that +real religion had little to do with it. + +Recently one good brother came to me with tears in his voice, if not +in his eyes, worried seriously as to my own religious belief because I +had asserted in a public address that I believed the earnest prayer +of a good Indian woman reached the ear of God as surely as did my own +prayers, or those of any man, woman, minister, or priest living. To +him the only effective prayers were "evangelical" prayers--whatever +that may mean--and he was deeply distressed and fearfully worried +because I could not see eye to eye with him in this matter. And a +dear, good woman, who heard a subsequent discussion of the subject, +was so worried over my attitude that she felt impelled to assure me +when I left that "she would pray for me." + +I have friends who are zealous Roman Catholics, and a number of them +are praying that I may soon enter the folds of "Mother Church," and +yet my Unitarian and Universalist friends wonder why I retain my +membership in any "orthodox" church. On the other hand, my New Thought +friends declare that I belong to them by the spirit of the messages I +have given to the world. Then, too, my Theosophist friends--and I have +many--present to me, with a force I do not attempt to controvert, the +doctrine of the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind, and urge upon +me acceptance of the comforting and helpful doctrine, to them, of +Reincarnation. + +Not long prior to this writing a good earnest man buttonholed me +and held me tight for over an hour, while he outlined his own slight +divergencies from the teachings of the Methodist Church, to which he +belongs, and his interpretation of the symbolism of Scripture, none +of which had the slightest interest to me. In our conversation, he +expressed himself as quite willing--please note the condescension--to +allow me the privilege of supposing the Catholic was honest and +sincere in his faith and belief, _but he really could not for one +moment_ allow the same to the Christian Scientist, who, from his +standpoint, denied the atonement and the Divinity of Christ. I suppose +if he ever picks up this booklet and reads what I am now going +to write, he will regard me as a reprobate and lost beyond the +possibility of salvation. Nevertheless, I wish to put on record that +I regard his attitude as one of intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, and +impudence--sheer, unadulterated impertinence. Who made him the judge +of the thoughts and acts of other men's inner lives? Who gave to him +the wisdom and power of discernment to know that _he_ was right and +these others wrong? Poor, arrogant fool. His worries were not the +result of genuine affection and deep human sympathy, the irrepressible +and uncontrollable desires and longings of his heart to bring +others into the full light of God's love, but of his overweening +self-confidence in his own wisdom and judgment. And I say this in no +personal condemnation of him, for I have now even forgotten who it +was, but in condemnation of the spirit in which he and all his ilk +ever act. + +Hence, my dear reader, if you are of his class, I say to you +earnestly: Don't worry about other people's salvation. It may be they +are nearer saved than you are. No man can' be "worried" into accepting +anything, even though _you_ may deem it the only Truth. I have known +men whom others regarded as agnostics who had given more study to the +question of personal religion than any ten of their critics. I can +recall three--all of whom were men of wonderful mentality and great +earnestness of purpose. John Burroughs's first essays were written +for his own soul's welfare--the results of his long-continued mental +struggles for light upon the subject. Major J.W. Powell, the organizer +and director for many years of the United States Geological Survey and +Bureau of American Ethnology, was brought up by a father and mother +whose intense longing was that their son should be a Methodist +preacher. The growing youth wished to please his parents, but was +also compelled to satisfy his own conscience. The more he studied the +creeds and doctrines of Methodism, the less he felt he could accept +them, and much to the regret of his parents, he refused to enter the +ministry. Yet, in relating the story to me, he asserted that his whole +life had been one long agony of earnest study to find the highest +truth. Taking me into his library, where there were several extended +shelves filled from end to end with the ponderous tomes of the two +great government bureaus that he controlled, he said: "Most people +regard this as my life-work, and outwardly it is. Yet I say to you in +all sincerity that the real, inner, secret force working through all +this, has been that I might satisfy my own soul on the subject of +religion." Then, picking up two small volumes, he said: "In these two +books I have recorded the results of my years of agonizing struggle. +I don't suppose ten men have ever read them through, or, perhaps, +ever will, but these are the real story of the chief work of my inner +life." + +I am one of the few men who have read both these books with scrupulous +care, and yet were it not for what my friend told me of their profound +significance to him, I should scarcely have been interested enough in +their contents to read them through. At the same time, I _know_ that +the men who, from the standpoint of their professionally religious +complacency would have condemned Major Powell, never spent +one-thousandth part the time, nor felt one ten-thousandth the real +solicitude that he did about seeking "the way, the truth, and the +life." + +Another friend in Chicago was Dr. M.H. Lackersteen, openly denounced +as an agnostic, and even as an infidel, by some zealous sectaries. +Yet Dr. Lackersteen had personally translated the whole of the Greek +Testament, and several other sacred books of the Hebrews and Hindoos, +in his intense desire to satisfy the demands of his own soul for +the Truth. He was the soul of honor, the very personification of +sincerity, and as much above some of his critics--whom I well knew--in +these virtues, as they were above the scum of the slums. + +The longer I live and study men the more I am compelled to believe +that religion is a personal matter between oneself and God and is more +of the spirit than most people have yet conceived. It is well known +to those who have read my books and heard my lectures on the Old +Franciscan Missions of California, that I revere the memory of Padres +Junipero Serra, Palou, Crespi, Catala, Peyri, and others of the +founders of these missions. I have equal veneration for the goodness +of many Catholic priests, nuns, and laymen of to-day. Yet I am not +a Catholic, though zealous sectaries of Protestantism--even of the +church to which I am supposed to belong--sometimes fiercely assail +me for my open commendation of these men of that faith. They are +_worried_ lest I lean too closely towards Catholicism, and ultimately +become one of that fold. Others, who hear my good words in favor of +what appeals to me as noble and uplifting in the lives of those of +other faiths of which they do not approve, worry over and condemn my +"breadth" of belief. Indeed, I have many friends who give themselves +an immense lot of altogether unnecessary worry about this matter. They +have labelled themselves according to some denominational tag, and +accept some form of belief that, to them, seems incontrovertible and +satisfactory. Many of them are praying for me, and each that I may see +the TRUTH from _his_ standpoint. For their prayers I am grateful. I +cannot afford to lose the spirit of love behind and in every one of +them. But for the _worry_ about me in their minds, I have neither +respect, regard, toleration, nor sympathy. I don't want it, can do +without it, and I resent its being there. To each and all of them I +say firmly: _Quit Your Worrying_ about my religion, or want of it. +I am in the hands of the same loving God that you are. I have the +promise of God's Guiding Spirit as much as you have. I have listened +respectfully and with an earnest and sincere desire to see and know +the Truth, to all you have said, and now I want to be left alone. I +have come to exclaim with Browning in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_: + + Now, who shall arbitrate? + Ten men love what I hate, + Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; + Ten, who in ears and eyes + Match me. We all surmise, + They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? + +For myself I have concluded that no one shall choose my religion for +me, and all the worrying in the world shall not change my attitude. + +And it is to the worrying of my friends that they owe this state of +mind. For this reason, I found myself one day counting up the number +of people of different beliefs who had solemnly promised to pray for +me. There were Methodists, Campbellites, Baptists, Roman Catholics, +Episcopalians, Seventh Day Adventists, Presbyterians, Nazarenes, +Holy Rollers, and others. Then the query arose: Whose prayers will be +answered on my behalf? Each is sure that _his_ are the ones that can +be effective; yet their prayers differ; they are, to some degree, +antagonistic, and insofar as they petition that I become one of their +particular fold, they nullify each other, as it is utterly impossible +that I accept the specific form of faith of each. The consequent +result in my own mind is that as I cannot possibly become what all +these good people desire I should be, as their desires and prayers for +me controvert each other, I must respectfully decline to be bound by +any one of them. I _must_ and _will_ do my own choosing. Hence all the +worry on my behalf is energy, strength, and effort wasted. + +Let me repeat, then, to the worrier about the salvation of others: You +are in a poor business. _Quit Your Worrying_. Hands off! This is none +of your concern. Believe as little or as much and what you will for +your own soul's salvation, but do not put forth _your_ conceptions as +the _only_ conceptions possible of Divine Truth before another soul +who may have an immeasurably larger vision than you have. Oh, +the pitiableness of man's colossal conceit, the arrogance of his +ignorance. As if the God of the Universe were so small that one +paltry, finite man could contain in his pint measure of a mind all the +ocean of His power, knowledge, and love. Let your small and wretched +worries go. Have a little larger faith in the Love of the Infinite +One. Tenderly love and trust those whose welfare you seek, and trust +God at the same time, but don't worry when you see the dear ones +walking in a path you have not chosen for them. Remember your own +ignorance, your own frailties, your own errors, your own mistakes, and +then frankly and honestly, fearlessly and directly ask yourself +the question if you dare to take upon your own ignorant self the +responsibility of seeking to control and guide another living soul as +to his eternal life. + +Brother, Sister, the job is too big for you. It takes God to do that, +and you are not yet even a perfect human being. Hence, while I long +for all spiritual good for my sons and daughters, and for my friends, +and I pray for them, it is in a large way, without any interjection of +my own decisions and conclusions as to what will be good for them. +I have no fears as I leave them thus in God's hand, and regard every +worry as sinful on my part, and injurious to them. I have no desire +that they should accept my particular brand of faith or belief. While +I believe absolutely in that which I accept for the guidance of my own +life, _I would not fetter their souls with my belief if I could_. They +are in wiser, better, larger, more loving Hands than mine. And if +I would not thus fetter my children and friends, I dare not seek to +fetter others. My business is to live my own religion to the utmost. +If I must worry, I will worry about that, though, as I think my +readers are well aware by now, I do not believe in any kind of worry +on any subject whatever. + +Hence, let me again affirm in concluding this chapter, I regard worry +about the religion of others as unwarrantable on account of our own +ignorances as to their peculiar needs, as well as of God's methods of +supplying those needs. It is also a useless expenditure of strength, +energy, and affection, for, if God leads, your worry cannot possibly +affect the one so led. It is also generally an irritant to the one +worried over. Even though he may not formulate it into words he feels +that it is an interference with his own inner life, a nagging that +he resents, and, therefore, it does him far more harm than good; +and, finally, it is an altogether indefensible attempt to saddle +upon another soul your own faith or belief, which may be altogether +unsuitable or inadequate to the needs of that soul. + +There is still one other form of worry connected with the subject +of religion. Many a good man and woman worries over the apparent +well-being and success of those whom he, she, accounts wicked! They +are seen to flourish as a green bay tree, or as a well-watered garden, +and this seems to be unfair, unjust, and unwise on the part of the +powers that govern the universe. If good is desirable, people ought +to be encouraged to it by material success--so reason these officially +good wiseacres, who subconsciously wish to dictate to God how He +should run His world. + +How often we hear the question: "Why is it the wicked prosper so?" or +"He's such a bad man and yet everything he does prospers." Holy Writ +is very clear on this subject. The sacred writer evidently was well +posted on the tendency of human nature to worry and concern itself +about the affairs of others, hence his injunction: + + Fret not thyself because of evil doers. + +In other words, it's none of your business. And I am inclined to +believe that a careful study of the Bible would reveal to every +busybody who worries over the affairs of others that he himself has +enough to do to attend to himself, and that his worry anyhow is a +ridiculous, absurd, and senseless piece of supererogation, and rather +a proof of human conceit and vanity than of true concern for the +spiritual good of others. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AMBITION AND WORRY + + +Some forms of ambition are sure and certain developers and feeders of +worry and fretful distress, and should be guarded against with jealous +care. We hear a great deal from our physicians of the germs of disease +that seize upon us and infect our whole being, but not all the disease +germs that ever infected a race are so demoralizing to one's peace and +joy as are the germs of such deadly mental diseases as those of envy, +malice, covetousness, ambition, and the like. Ambition, like wine, is +a mocker. It is a vain deluder of men. It takes an elevated position +and beckons to you to rise, that you may be seen and flattered of men. +It does not say: "Gain strength and power, wisdom and virtue, so that +men will place you upon the pedestal of their veneration, respect, +and love," but it bids you seize the "spotlight" and hold it, and no +sooner are you there than it begins to pester you, as with a hundred +thousand hornets, flying around and stinging you, with doubts and +questionings as to whether your fellows see you in this elevated +place, whether they really discern your worth, your beauty, your +shining qualities; and, furthermore, it quickens your hearing, and +bids you strain to listen to what they say about you, and as you do +so, you are pricked, stabbed, wounded by their slighting and jeering +remarks, their scornful comments upon your impertinent and impudent +arrogance at daring to take such a place, and their open denial of +your possession of any of the qualities which would entitle you to so +honored a position in the eyes of men. + +Then, too, it must be recalled that, when fired with the desires of +this mocker, ambition, one is inclined, in his selfish absorption, to +be ruthless in his dealings with others. It is so easy to trample upon +others when a siren is beckoning you to climb higher, and your ears +are eagerly listening to her seductive phrases. With her song in +your ears, you cannot hear the wails of anguish of others, upon whose +rights and life you trample, the manly rebukes of those you wound, +or the stern remonstrances of those who bid you heed your course. +Ambition blinds and deafens, and, alas, calluses the heart, kills +comradeship, drives away friendship in its eager selfishness, and in +so doing, lets in a flood of worries that ever beset its victims. They +may not always be in evidence while there is the momentary triumph of +climbing, but they are there waiting, ready to teeter the pedestal, +whisper of its unsure and unstable condition, call attention to those +who are digging around its foundations, and to the fliers in the air, +who threaten to hurl down bombs and completely destroy it. + +Phaeton begged that his father, Phoebus Apollo, allow him to drive +the flaming chariot of day through the heavens, and, in spite of all +warnings and cautions, insisted upon his power and ability. Though +instructed and informed as to the great dangers he evoked, he seized +the reins with delight, stood up in the chariot, and urged on the +snorting steeds to furious speed. Soon conscious of a lighter load +than usual, the steeds dashed on, tossing the chariot as a ship at +sea, and rushed headlong from the traveled road of the middle zone. +The Great and Little Bear were scorched, and the Serpent that coils +around the North Pole was warmed to life. Now filled with fear and +dread, Phaeton lost self-control, and looked repentant to the goal +which he could never reach. The unrestrained steeds dashed hither and +thither among the stars, and reaching the Earth, set fire to trees, +cities, harvests, mountains. The air became hot and lurid. The rivers, +springs, and snowbanks were dried up. The Earth then cried out in her +agony to Jupiter for relief, and he launched a thunderbolt at the now +cowed and broken-hearted driver, which not only struck him from the +seat he had dishonored, but also out of existence. + +The old mythologists were no fools. They saw the worries, the dangers, +the sure end of ambition. They wrote their cautions and warnings +against it in this graphic story. Why will men and women, for the sake +of an uncertain and unsure goal, tempt the Fates, and, at the same +time, surely bring upon themselves a thousand unnecessary worries +that sting, nag, taunt, fret, and distress? Far better seek a goal of +certainty, a harbor of sureness, in the doing of kindly deeds, noble +actions, unselfish devotion to the uplift of others. In this mad rush +of ambitious selfishness, such a life aim may _seem_ chimerical, yet +it is the only aim that will reach, attain, endure. For all earthly +fame, ambitious attainment, honor, glory is evanescent and temporary. +Like the wealth of the miser, it must be left behind. There is no +pocket in any shroud yet devised which will convey wealth across the +River of Death, and no man's honors and fame but that fade in the +clear light of the Spirit that shines in the land beyond. + +Then, ambitious friend, quit your worrying, readjust your aim, trim +your lamp for another and better guest, live for the uplift of others, +seek to give help and strength to the needy, bring sunshine to the +darkened, give of your abundance of spirit and exuberance to those who +have little or none, and thus will you lay up treasure within your own +soul which will convert hell into heaven, and give you joy forever. + +So long as men and women believe that happiness lies in outdistancing, +surpassing their fellows in exterior or material things, they cannot +help but be subjects to worry. To determine to gain a larger fortune +than that possessed by another man is a sure invitation to worry +to enter into possession of one's soul. Who has not seen the vain +struggles, the distress, the worry of unsatisfied ambitions that would +have amounted to nothing had they been gratified? In Women's Clubs--as +well as men's--many a heart-ache is caused because some other woman +gains an office, is elected to a position, is appointed on a committee +you had coveted. + +The remedy for this kind of worry is to change the aim of life. +Instead of making position, fame, the attainment of fortune, office, a +fine house, an automobile, the object of existence, make _the doing +of something worthy a noble manhood or womanhood the object of your +ambition_. Strive to make yourself _worthy_ to be the best president +your club has ever had; endeavor to be the finest equipped, mentally, +for the work that is to be done, _whether you are chosen to do it or +not_, and keep on, and on, and still on, finding your joy in the work, +in the benefit it is to yourself, in the power it is storing up within +you. + +Then, as sure as the sun shines, the time will come when you will be +chosen to do the needed work. "Your own will come to you." Nothing can +hinder it. It will flow as certainly into your hands as the waters of +the river flow into the sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ENVY AND WORRY + + +Envy is a prolific source of worry. Once allow this demon of unrest +to fasten itself in one's vitals, and worry claims every waking +hour. Envy is that peculiar demon of discontent that cannot see +the abilities, attainments, achievements, or possessions of another +without malicious determination to belittle, deride, make light of, or +absolutely deny their existence, while all the time covetously craving +them for itself. Andrew Tooke pictures Envy as a vile female: + + A deadly paleness in her cheek was seen; + Her meager skeleton scarce cased with skin; + Her looks awry; an everlasting scowl + Sits on her brow; her teeth deform'd and foul; + Her breast had gall more than her breast could hold; + Beneath her tongue coats of poison roll'd; + No smile e'er smooth'd her furrow'd brow but those + Which rose from laughing at another's woes; + Her eyes were strangers to the sweets of sleep, + Devouring spite for ever waking keep; + She sees bless'd men with vast success crown'd, + Their joys distract her, and their glories wound; + She kills abroad, herself's consum'd at home, + And her own crimes are her perpetual martyrdom. + +Ever watching, with bloodshot eyes, the good things of others, she +hates them for their possessions, longs to possess them herself, +lets her covetousness gnaw hourly at her very vitals, and yet, in +conversation with others, slays with slander, vile innuendo, and +falsehood, the reputation of those whose virtues she covets. + +As Robert Pollock wrote of one full of envy: + + It was his earnest work and daily toil + With lying tongue, to make the noble seem + Mean as himself. + + * * * * * + + Whene'er he heard, + As oft he did, of joy and happiness, + And great prosperity, and rising worth, + 'Twas like a wave of wormwood o'er his soul + Rolling its bitterness. + +Aye! and he drank in great draughts of this bitter flood, holding it +in his mouth, tasting its foul and biting qualities until his whole +being seemed saturated with it, hating it, dreading it, suffering +every moment while doing it, yet enduring it, because of his envy at +the good of others. + +Few there are, who, at some time or other in their lives, do not have +a taste, at least, of the stinging bite of envy. Girls are envious of +each other's good looks, clothes, possessions, houses, friends; boys +of the strength, skill, ability, popularity of others; women of other +women, men of other men, just as when they were boys and girls. + +One of the strongest words the great Socrates ever wrote was against +envy. He said: + + Envy is the daughter of pride, the author of murder and + revenge, the beginner of secret sedition, the perpetual + tormentor of virtue. Envy is the filthy slime of the soul; a + venom, a poison, a quicksilver, which consumeth the flesh, and + drieth up the marrow of the bones. + +And history clearly shows that the wise philosopher stated facts. +Caligula slew his brother because he possessed a beauty that led him +to be more esteemed and favored than he. Dionysius, the tyrant, was +vindictive and cruel to Philoxenius, the musician, because he could +sing; and with Plato, the philosopher, because he could dispute, +better than himself. Even the great Cambyses slew his brother, +Smerdis, because he was a stronger and better bowman than himself or +any of his party. It was envy that led the courtiers of Spain to crave +and seek the destruction of Columbus, and envy that set a score of +enemies at the heels of Cortes, the conqueror of Peru. + +It is a fearful and vindictive devil, is this devil of envy, and he +who yields to it, who once allows it admittance to the citadel of his +heart, will soon learn that every subsequent waking and even sleeping +moment is one of worry and distress. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DISCONTENT AND WORRY + + +Closely allied to envy is discontent. These are blood relations, and +both are prolific sources of worry. And lest there are those who +think because I have revealed, in the preceding chapter, the demon of +worry--envy--as one that attacks the minds of the great and mighty, it +does not enter the hearts of everyday people, let me quote, entire, an +article and a poem recently written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in _The Los +Angeles Examiner_. The discontent referred to clearly comes from envy. +Some one has blond tresses, while she has black. This arouses her +envy. She is envious because another's eyes are blue, while hers +are brown; another is tall, while she is small; etc., etc. There is +nothing, indeed, that she cannot weep and worry over: + + There is a certain girl I know, a pretty little elf, + Who spends almost her entire thoughts in pity for herself. + + Her glossy tresses, raven black, cause her to weep a pond-- + She is so sorry for herself because they are not blond. + + Her eyes, when dry, are very bright and very brown, 'tis true, + But they are almost always wet, because they are not blue. + + She is of medium height, and when she sees one quite tall + She weeps all day in keenest pain because she is so small. + + But if she meets some tiny girl whom she considers fair, + Then that she is so big herself she sobs in great despair. + + When out upon a promenade her tears she cannot hide, + To think she is obliged to walk while other folks can ride. + + But if she drives, why then she weeps--it is so hard to be + Perched stiffly in a carriage seat while other girls run free. + + She used to cry herself quite sick to think she had to go + Month after month to dreary schools; that was her constant woe. + + But on her graduating day, my, how her tears did run! + It seemed so sorrowful to know that her school life was done. + + One day she wept because she saw a funeral train go by-- + It was so sad that she must live while other folks could die. + + And really all her friends will soon join with her in those tears + Unless she takes a brighter view of life ere many years. + +The conceited girl or woman is tiresome and unpleasant as a companion, +but the morbidly discontented woman is far worse. Perhaps you have met +her, with her eternal complaint of the injustice of Fate toward her. + +She feels that she is born for better things than have befallen her; +her family does not understand her; her friends misjudge her; the +public slights her. + +If she is married she finds herself superior to her husband and to her +associates. She is eternally longing for what she has not, and when +she gets it is dissatisfied. + +The sorrowful side of life alone appeals to her. + +This she believes is due to her "artistic nature." The injustice of +fortune and the unkindness of society are topics dear to her heart. +She finds her only rapture in misery. + +If she is religiously inclined she looks toward Heaven with more grim +satisfaction in the thought that it will strip fame, favor and fortune +from the unworthy than because it will give her the benefits she feels +she deserves. + +She does not dream that she is losing years of Heaven here upon earth +by her own mental attitude. + +WE BUILD OUR HEAVENS THOUGHT BY THOUGHT. + +If you are dwelling upon the dark phases of your destiny and upon the +ungracious acts of Fate, you are shaping more of the same experience +for yourself here and in realms beyond. + +You are making happiness impossible for yourself upon any plane. In +your own self lies Destiny. + +I have known a woman to keep her entire family despondent for years by +her continual assertions that she was out of her sphere, misunderstood +and unappreciated. + +The minds of sensitive children accepted these statements and grieved +over "Poor Mother's" sad life until their own youth was embittered. +The morbid mother seized upon the sympathies of her children like a +leech and sapped their young lives of joy. + +The husband grew discouraged and indifferent under the continual +strain, and what might have been a happy home was a desolate one, and +its memory is a nightmare to the children to-day. + + Understand yourself and your Divine possibilities and you will + cease to think you are misunderstood. + + It is not possible to misunderstand a beautiful, sunny day. + All nature rejoices in its loveliness. + + Give love, cheerfulness, kindness and good-will to all + humanity, and you need not worry about being misunderstood. + + Give the best you have to each object, purpose and individual, + and you will eventually receive the best from humanity. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +COWARDICE AND WORRY + + +Cowardice is a much more prolific source of worry than most people +imagine. There are many varieties of cowardice, all tracing their +ancestry back to fear. Fear truly makes cowards of us all. There are +the physical cowards, the social cowards, the business cowards, the +hang-on-to-your-job cowards, the political cowards, the moral cowards, +the religious cowards, and fifty-seven, nay, a hundred and one other +varieties. Each and all of these have their own attendant demons of +worry. Every barking dog becomes a lion ready to tear one to pieces, +and no bridge is strong enough to allow us to pass over in safety. No +cloud has a silver lining, and every rain-storm is sure to work +injury to the crops rather than bring the needful moisture for their +vivification. + +What a piteous sight to see a man who dares not express his honest +opinions, who must crawl instead of walk upright, in the presence of +his employer, lest he lose his job. How his cowardice worries him, +meets him at every turn, torments him, lest some incautious word be +repeated, lest he say or do the wrong thing. And so long as there +are cowards to employ, bully employers will exist. Nay, the cowardice +seems to call out bullying qualities. Just as a cur will follow you +with barkings and threatening growls if you run from him, and yet turn +tail and run when you boldly face him, so with most men, with society, +with the world--flee from them, show your fear of them, and they will +harry you, but boldly face them, they gentle down immediately, fawn +upon you, lie down, or, to use an expressive slang phrase, "come and +eat out of your hand." + +How politicians straddle the fence, refrain from expressing their +opinions, deal in glittering generalities, because of their cowardly +fears. How they turn their sails to catch every breath of popular +favor. How cautious, politic, wary, they are, and how fears worry and +besiege them, whenever they accidentally or incidentally say something +that can be interpreted as a positive conviction. And yet men really +love a brave man in political life; one who has definite convictions +and fearlessly states them; who has no worries as to results but dares +to say and do those things only of which his conscience approves. No +matter how one may regard Roosevelt, cowardice is one thing none will +accuse him of. He says his say, does his will, expresses himself with +freedom upon any and all subjects, let results be as they may. Such +a man is free from the petty worries that beset most politicians. +He knows nothing of their existence. They cannot breathe in the free +atmosphere that is essential to his life; like the cowardly cur, they +run away at his approach. + +Oh, cowards all, of every kind and degree, quit ye like men, be strong +and of good courage, dare and do, dare and say, dare and be, take a +manly stand, fling out your banner boldly to the breeze, cry out as +did Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty, or give me death," or as that +other patriot did: "Sink or swim, survive or perish, I give my hand +and my heart to this vote." Do the things you are afraid of; dare the +men who make cowards of you; say the things you fear to say; and be +the things you know you ought to be, and it will surprise you how the +petty devils of worry will slink away from you. You will walk in new +life, in new strength, in new joy, in new freedom. For he who lives a +life free from worries of this nature, has a spontaneity, a freedom, +an exuberance, an enthusiasm, a boldness, that not only are winsome in +themselves, make friends, open the doors of opportunity, attract the +moving elements of life, but that give to their possessor an entirely +new outlook, a wider survey, a more comprehensive grasp. Life itself +becomes bigger, grander, more majestic, more worth while, the whole +horizon expands, and from being a creature of petty affairs, dabbling +in a small way in the stuff of which events are made, he becomes a +potent factor, a man, a creator, a god, though in the germ. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +WORRY ABOUT MANNERS AND SPEECH + + +Many people are desperately worried about their manners. One has +but to read the letters written to the "Answers to Correspondents" +departments of the newspapers to see how much worry this subject of +manners causes. This springs, undoubtedly, from a variety of causes. +People brought up in the country, removing to the city, find the +conditions of life very different from those to which they have been +accustomed, and they are _uncertain_ as to what city people regard +as the right and proper things to do. Where one, perforce, must act, +uncertainty is always irritating or worrying, and, because of this +uncertainty, many people worry even before the time comes to act. Now, +if their worry would take a practical and useful turn--or, perhaps, I +had better state it in another way, viz., that if they would spend +the same time in deciding what their course of action should be--there +would be an end put to the worry. + +We have all seen such people. They are worried lest their clothes are +not all right for the occasion, lest their tie is of the wrong shade, +their shoes of the correct style, and a thousand and one things that +they seem to conjure up for the especial purpose of worrying over +them. Who has not seen the nervousness, the worried expression on the +face, the real misery of such people, caused by trifles that are so +insignificant as not to be worth one-tenth the bother wasted on them. + +The learning of a few fundamental principles will help out +wonderfully. The chief end of "good manners" is to oil the wheels +of social converse. Hence, the first and most important principle to +learn is a due and proper consideration for the rights, opinions, and +comfort of others. In other words, don't think of yourself so much as +of the other fellow. Let your question be, not: How can I secure +my own pleasure and comfort? but How can I best secure his? It is a +self-evident proposition that you cannot make him feel comfortable and +happy if you are uncomfortable and unhappy. Hence, the first thing to +do is to quit worrying and be comfortable. This desired state of mind +will come as soon as you have courageously made up your mind as to +what standard of manners you intend to follow. The world is made up +to-day, largely, of two classes: those who have money, and those who +don't. Of the former class, a certain few set themselves up as the +arbiters of good manners; they decide what shall be called "good +form," and what is not allowable. If you belong to that class, the +best thing you can do is to learn "to play the game their way." Study +their rules of calling cards, and learn whether you leave one, two, +three, or six when you are calling upon a man, or a woman, or both, or +their oldest unmarried daughter, or the rest of the family. This is +a regular game like golf, or polo. You have to know the course, the +tools to use, and the method of going from one goal to another. Now, I +never knew any ordinarily intelligent man or woman who couldn't learn +the names of the tools used in golf, the numbers of the holes, and the +rules of the game. _How_ you play the game is another matter. And so +is it in "good society." You can learn the rules as easily as the next +one, and then it is "up to you" as to _how_ you play it. You'll have +to study the fashions in clothes; the fashions in handkerchiefs, and +how to flirt with them; when to drink tea, and where; how to lose +money gracefully at bridge; how to gabble incessantly and not know +what you are talking about; how to listen "intelligently" and not have +the remotest idea what your _vis-a-vis_ is saying to you; you'll have +to join 'steen clubs, and read ten new novels a day; go to every new +play; know all about the latest movies; know all the latest ideas +of social uplift, study art, the spiritual essence of color, the +futurists, and the cubists. Of course, you'll study the peerage of +England and know all about rank and precedence--and, indeed, you'll +have your hands and mind so full of things that will make such a hash +of life that it will take ten specialists to straighten you out and +help you to die forty years before your time. Hence, if that is the +life you intend to live, throw this book into the fire. It will be +wasting your time to read it. + +If you don't belong to the class of the extra rich, but are all the +time wishing that you did; that you had their money, could live as +they live, and, as far as you can, you imitate, copy, and follow +them, then, again, I recommend that you give this book to the nearest +newsboy and let him sell it and get some good out of it. You are not +yet ready for it, or else you have gone so far beyond me in life, that +you are out of my reach. + +If, on the other hand, you belong to the class of _workers_, those who +have to earn their living and wish to spend their lives intelligently +and usefully, you can well afford to disregard--after you have learned +to apply the few basic principles of social converse--the whims, the +caprices, the artificial code set up by the so-called arbiters of +fashion, manners, and "good form," which are not formulated for +the promotion of intelligent intercourse between real manhood and +womanhood, but for the preservation and strengthening of the barriers +of wealth and caste. + +Connected with this phase of the subject is a consideration of those +who are worried lest in word or action, they fail in gentility. They +are afraid to do anything lest it should not be regarded as genteel. +When they shake hands, it must be done not so much with hearty, +friendly spontaneity, but with gentility, and you wonder what that +faint touch of fingers, reached high in air, means. They would be +mortified beyond measure if they failed to observe any of the little +gentilities of life, while the larger consideration of their visitor's +disregard of the matter, would entirely escape them. To such people, +social intercourse is a perpetual worry and bugbear. They are on the +watch every moment, and if a visitor fails to say, "Pardon me," at the +proper place, or stands with his back to his hostess for a moment, or +does any other of the things that natural men and women often do, they +are "shocked." + +Then it would be amusing, were it not pathetic, to see how particular +they are about their speech--_what_ they say, and _how_ they say it. +As Dr. Palmer has tersely said: "We are terrorized by custom, and +inclined to adjust what we would say to what others have said before," +and he might have added: It must be said in the same manner. + +I cannot help asking why men and women should be terrorized by +custom--the method followed or prescribed by other men and women. Why +be so afraid of others; why so anxious to "kow-tow" to the standards +of others? Who are they? What are they, that they should demand the +reverent following of the world? Have you anything to say? Have you +a right to say it? Is it wise to say it? Then, in the name of God, of +manhood, of common sense, say it, directly, positively, assertively, +as is your right, remembering the assurance of the Declaration of +Independence that "all men are created equal." Don't worry about +whether you are saying it in the genteel fashion of some one else's +standard. Make your own standard. Even the standards of the grammar +books and dictionaries are not equal to that of a man who has +something to say and says it forcefully, truthfully, pointedly, +directly. Dr. Palmer has a few words to say on this phase of the +subject, which are well worthy serious consideration: "The cure for +the first of these troubles is to keep our eyes on our object, instead +of on our listener or ourselves; and for the second, to learn to rate +the expressiveness of language more highly than its compeers. +The opposite of this, the disposition to set correctness above +expressiveness, produces that peculiarly vulgar diction, known as +"school-ma'am English," in which for the sake of a dull accord with +usage, all the picturesque, imaginative, and forceful employment of +words is sacrificed." + +There you have it! If you have something to say that really means +something, think of that, rather than of the way of saying it, your +hearer, or yourself. Thus you will lose your self-consciousness, your +dread, your fear, your worry. If your thought is worth anything, +you can afford to laugh at some small violation of grammar, or the +knocking over of some finical standard or other. Not that I would be +thought to advocate either carelessness, laziness, or indifference in +speech. Quite the contrary, as all who have heard me speak well know. +But I fully believe that _thought_ is of greater importance than _form +of expression_. And, as for grammar, I believe with Thomas Jefferson, +that "whenever, by small grammatical negligences, the energy of your +ideas can be condensed or a word be made to stand for a sentence, I +hold grammatical rigor in contempt." + +I was present once when Thomas Carlyle and a technical grammarian +were talking over some violation of correct speech--according to the +latter's standard--when Carlyle suddenly burst forth in effect, in his +rich Scotch burr: "Why, mon, I'd have ye ken that I'm one of the men +that make the language for little puppies like ye to paw over with +your little, fiddling, twiddling grammars!" + +By all means, know all the grammar you can. Read the best of poets and +prose authors to see how they have mastered the language, but don't +allow your life to become a burden to you and others because of your +worry lest you "slip a grammatical cog" here and there, when you know +you have something worth saying. And if you haven't anything worth +saying, please, please, keep your mouth shut, no matter what the +genteel books prescribe, for nothing can justify the talk of an +empty-headed fool who will insist upon talking when he and his +listeners know he has nothing whatever to say. So, if you must worry, +let it be about something worth while--getting hold of ideas, the +strength of your thought, the power of your emotion, the irresistible +sweep of your enthusiasm, the forcefulness of your indignation about +wrong. These are things it is worth while to set your mind upon, and +when you have decided what you ought to say, and are absorbed with +the power of its thought, the need the world has for it, you will care +little about the exact form of your words. Like the flood of a mighty +stream, they will pour forth, carrying conviction with them, and to +convince your hearer of some powerful truth is an object worthy the +highest endeavor of a godlike man or woman--surely a far different +object than worrying as to whether the words or method of expression +meet some absurd standard of what is conceived to be "gentility." + +Congressman Hobson, of Merrimac fame, and Ex-President Roosevelt are +both wonderful illustrations of the point I am endeavoring to impress +upon my readers. I heard Hobson when, in Philadelphia, at a public +dinner given in his honor, he made his first speech after his return +from Cuba. It was evident that he had been, and was, much worried +about what he should say, and the result was everybody else was +worried as he tried to say it. His address was a pitiable failure, +mainly because he had little or nothing to say, and yet tried to make +a speech. Later he entered Congress, began to feel intensely upon the +subjects of national defense and prohibition of the alcoholic liquor +traffic. A year or so ago I heard him speak on the latter of these +subjects. Here, now, was an entirely different man. He was possesed +with a great idea. He was no longer trying to find something to say, +but in a powerful, earnest, and enthusiastic way, he poured forth +facts, figures, argument, and illustration, that could not fail to +convince an open mind, and profoundly impress even the prejudiced. + +It was the same with Roosevelt. When he first began to speak in +public, it was hard work. He wrote his addresses beforehand, and then +read them. Perhaps he does now, for aught I know to the contrary, but +I do know that now that he is full of the subjects of national honor +in dealing with such cases as Mexico, Belgium, and Armenia, and our +preparedness to sacrifice life itself rather than honor, his words +pour forth in a perfect Niagara of strong, robust, manly argument, +protest, and remonstrance, which gives one food for deep thought no +matter how much he may differ. + +There are those who worry about the "gentility" of others. I remember +when Charles Wagner, the author of _The Simple Life_, was in this +country. We were dining at the home of a friend and one of these +super-sensitive, finical sticklers for gentility was present. Wagner +was speaking in his big, these super-sensitive, finical sticklers for +gentility simple, primitive way of a man brought up as a peasant, +and more concerned about what he was thinking than whether his "table +manners" conformed to the latest standard. There was some gravy on his +plate. He wanted it. He took a piece of bread and used it as a sop, +and then, impaling the gravy-soaked bread on his fork, he conveyed it +to his mouth with gusto and relish. My "genteel" friend commented upon +it afterwards as "disgusting," and lost all interest in the man and +his work as a consequence. + +To my mind, the criticism was that of a fool. + +John Muir, the eminent poet-naturalist of the _Mountains of +California_, had a habit at the table of "crumming" his bread--that +is, toying with it, until it crumbled to pieces in his hand. He +would, at the same time, be sending out a steady stream of the most +entertaining, interesting, fascinating, and instructive lore about +birds and beasts, trees and flowers, glaciers and rocks, that one +ever listened to. In his mental occupancy, he knew not whether he was +eating his soup with a fork or an ice-cream spoon--and cares less. +Neither did any one else with brains and an awakened mind that soared +above mere conventional manners. And yet I once had an Eastern woman +of great wealth, (recently acquired), and of great pretensions to +social "manners," at whose table Muir had eaten, inform me that she +regarded him as a rude boor, because, forsooth, he was unmindful +of these trivial and unimportant conventions when engaged in +conversation. + +Now, neither Wagner nor Muir would justify any advocacy on my part of +neglect of true consideration, courtesy, or good manners. But where +is the "lack of breeding" in sopping up gravy with a piece of bread or +"crumming," or eating soup with a spoon of one shape or another? These +are purely arbitrary rules, laid down by people who have more time +than sense, money than brains, and who, as I have elsewhere remarked, +are far more anxious to preserve the barand unimportant conventions +when engaged in conive realization of the biblical idea of the +"brotherhood of man." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE WORRIES OF JEALOUSY + + +A prolific source of worry is jealousy; not only the jealousy that +exists between men and women, but that exists between women and women, +and between men and men. There are a thousand forms that this hideous +monster of evil assumes, and when they have been catalogued and +classified, another thousand will be found awaiting, around the +corner, of entirely different categories. But all alike they have +one definite origin, one source, one cause. And that cause, I am +convinced, is selfishness. We wish to own, to dominate, to control, +absolutely, entirely, for our own pleasure, and satisfaction, that of +which we are jealous. In Chapter One I tell the incident of the young +man on the street car whose jealous worry was so manifest when he +saw his "girl" smiling upon another man. I suppose most men and women +feel, or have felt, at some time or other, this sex jealousy. That +woman belongs to _me_, her smiles are _mine_, her pleasant words +should fall on _my_ ear alone; _I_ am her lover, she, the mistress of +_my_ heart; and that should content her. + +Every writer of the human heart has expatiated upon this great source +of worry--jealousy. Shakspere refers to it again and again. The whole +play of _Othello_ rests upon the Moor's jealousy of his fair, sweet, +and loyally faithful Desdemona. How the fiendish Iago plays upon +Othello's jealous heart until one sees that: + + Trifles, light as air, + Are to the jealous confirmations strong + As proofs of holy writ. + +Iago bitterly resents a slight he feels Othello has put upon him. With +his large, generous, unsuspicious nature, Othello never dreams of such +a thing; he trusts Iago as his intimate friend, and thus gives the +crafty fiend the oportunity he desires to + + put the Moor + Into a jealousy so strong + That judgment cannot cure ... + Make the Moor thank me, love me, reward me, + For making him egregiously an ass + And practicing upon his peace and quiet + Even to madness. + +Othello gives his wife, Desdemona, a rare handkerchief. Iago urges his +own wife, who is Desdemona's maid, to pilfer this and bring it to him. +When he gets it, he leaves it in Cassio's room. Cassio was an intimate +friend of Othello's, one, indeed, who had gone with him when he went +to woo Desdemona, and who, by Iago's machinations, had been suspended +from his office of Othello's chief lieutenant. To provoke Othello's +jealousy Iago now urges Desdemona to plead Cassio's cause with her +husband, and at the came time eggs on Othello to watch Cassio: + + Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio; + Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure. + I would not have your free and noble nature + Out of self-bounty be abus'd; look to 't. + +Thus he works Othello up to a rage, and yet all the time pretends to +be holding him back: + + I do see you're mov'd; + I pray you not to strain my speech + To grosser issues nor to larger reach + Than to suspicion. + +Iago leaves the handkerchief in Cassio's room, at the same time +saying: + + The Moor already changes with my poison; + Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons, + Which at the first are scarce found to distaste, + But with a little act upon the blood, + Burn like the mines of sulphur. + +And as he sees the tortures the jealous worries of the Moor have +already produced in him, he exultingly yet stealthily rejoices: + + Not poppy, nor mandragora, + Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, + Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep + Which thou hadst yesterday. + +Well might Othello exclaim that he is "Set on the rack." Each new +suspicion is a fresh pull of the lever, a tightening of the strain +to breaking point, and soon his jealousy turns to the fierce and +murderous anger Iago hoped it would: + + Like to the Pontic sea, + Whose icy current and compulsive course + Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on + To the Propontic and the Hellespont, + Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, + Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, + Till that a capable and wide revenge + Swallow them up. + +Thus was he urged on, worried by his jealousy, until, in his bloody +rage, he slew his faithful wife. Poor Desdemona, we weep her fate, yet +at the same time we should deeply lament that Othello was so beguiled +and seduced by his jealousy to so horrible a deed. And few men or +women there are, unless their souls are purified by the wisdom of God, +that are not liable to jealous influences. Our human nature is weak +and full of subtle treacheries, that, like Iago, seduce us to our own +undoing. He who yields for one moment to the worries of jealousy +is already on the downward path that leads to misery, woe and deep +undoing, Iago is made to declare the philosophy of this fact, when, in +the early portion of the play he says to Roderigo: + + 'Tis in ourselves we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our + gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if + we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up + thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with + many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with + industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies + in our wills. + +Therein, surely, is great truth. We can plant or weed up, in the +garden of our minds, whatever we will; we can "have it sterile +with idleness," or fertilize it with industry, and it must ever be +remembered that the more fertile the soil the more evil weeds will +grow apace if we water and tend them. Our jealous worries are the +poisonous weeds of life's garden and should be rooted out instanter, +and kept out, until not a sign of them can again be found. + +Solomon sang that "jealousy is as cruel as the grave; the coals +thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame." + +What a graphic picture of worry--a fire of vehement flame, burning, +scorching, destroying peace, happiness, content, joy and reducing them +to ashes. + +In my travel and observation I have found a vast amount of jealous +worry in institutions of one kind and another--such as the Indian +Service, in reform schools, in humane societies, in hospitals, among +the nurses, etc. It seems to be one of the misfortunes of weak human +nature when men and women associate themselves together to do some +work which ought to call out all the nobleness, the magnanimity, the +godlike qualities of their souls, they become maggoty with jealous +worries--worry that they are not accorded the honor that is their +due; worry that _their_ work is not properly appreciated; worry lest +someone else becomes a favorite of the Superintendent, etc., etc., +etc., _ad libitum_. Worries of this nature in every case, are a proof +of small, or undeveloped, natures. No truly great man or woman can +be jealous. Jealousy implies that you are not sure of your own worth, +ability, power. You find someone else is being appreciated, you +_covet_ that appreciation for yourself, whether you deserve it or not. +In other words you yield to accursed selfishness, utterly forgetful of +the apostolic injunction: "In honor preferring one another." + +And the same jealousies are found among men and women in every walk of +life, in trade, in the office, among professors in schools, colleges, +universities; in the learned professions, among lawyers, physicians +and even among the ministers of the gospel, and judges upon the bench. + +Oh! shame! shame! upon the littleness, the meanness, the paltriness +of such jealousies; of the worries that come from them. How any human +being is to be pitied whose mortal mind is corroded with the biting +acid of jealous worry. When I see those who are full of worry because +yielding to this demon of jealousy I am almost inclined to believe +in the old-time Presbyterian doctrine of "total depravity." Whenever, +where-ever, you find yourself feeling jealous, take yourself by the +throat (figuratively), and strangle the feeling, then go and frankly +congratulate the person of whom you are jealous upon some good you can +truthfully say you see in him; spread his praises abroad; seek to do +him honor. Thus by active work against your own paltry emotion you +will soon overcome it and be free from its damning and damnable +worries. + +Akin to the worries of jealousy are the worries of hate. How much +worry hate causes the hater, he alone can tell. He spends hours in +conjuring up more reasons for his hate than he would care to write +down. Every success of the hated is another stimulant to worry, and +each step forward is a sting full of pain and bitterness. + +He who hates walks along the path of worry, and so long as he hates he +must worry. Hence, there is but one practical way of escape from the +worries of hatred, viz., by ceasing to hate, by overcoming evil with +good. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE WORRIES OF SUSPICION + + +He who has a suspicious mind is ever the prey of worry. Such an one is +to be pitied for he is tossed hither and yon, to and fro, at the whim +of every breath of suspicion he breathes. He has no real peace of +mind, no content, no unalloyed joy, for even in his hours of pleasure, +of recreation, of expected jollity he is worrying lest someone is +trying to get ahead of him, his _vis-a-vis_ is "jollying" him, his +partner at golf is trying to steal a march on him, he is not being +properly served at the picnic, etc. + +These suspicious-minded people are sure that every man is a scoundrel +at heart--more or less--and needs to be watched; no man or woman is to +be trusted; every grocer will sand his sugar, chicory his coffee, sell +butterine for butter, and cold-storage eggs for fresh if he gets a +chance. To accept the word of a stranger is absurd, as it is also +to believe in the disinterestedness of a politician, reformer, +office-holder, a corporation, or a rich man. But to believe evil, +to expect to be swindled, or prepare to be deceived is the height +of perspicacity and wisdom. How wonderfully Shakspere in _Othello_ +portrays the wretchedness of the suspicious man. One reason why Iago +so hated the Moor was that he suspected him: + + the thoughts whereof + Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards, + And nothing can or shall content my soul + Till I am even'd with him. + +How graphic the simile, "gnaw my inwards;" it is the perpetual symbol +of worry; the poisonous mineral ever biting away the lining of the +stomach; just as mice and rats gnaw at the backs of the most precious +books and destroy them; aye, as they gnaw during the night-time and +drive sleep away from the weary, so does suspicion gnaw with its sharp +worrying teeth to the destruction of peace, happiness and joy. + +Then, when Iago has poisoned Othello's mind with suspicions about his +wife, how the Moor is worried, gnawed by them: + + By heaven, he echoes me, + As if there were some monster in his thought + Too hideous to be shown--(To Iago) Thou dost mean something. + I heard thee say even now, thou lik'dst not that, + When Cassio left my wife; what didst not like? + And when I told thee he was of my counsel + In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst 'Indeed!' + And didst contract and purse thy brow together, + As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain + Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, + Show me thy thought. + +And then we know, how, with crafty, devilish cunning, Iago plays upon +these suspicions, fans their spark into flames. He pretends to be +doing it purely on Othello's account and accuses himself that: + + it is my nature's plague + To spy into abuses, and yet my jealousy + Shapes faults that are not: + +and then cries out: + + O beware, my lord, of jealousy! + It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock + The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss + Who certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; + But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er + Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves! + +There, indeed, the woe of the suspicious is shown. His minutes are +really "damned;" peace flies his heart, rest from his couch, sanity +from his throne, and, _yielding_ himself, he becomes filled with +murderous anger and imperils his salvation here and hereafter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE WORRIES OF IMPATIENCE + + +How many of our worries come from impatience? We do not want to wait +until the fruition of our endeavors comes naturally, until the time is +ripe, until we are ready for that which we desire. We wish to +overrule conditions which are beyond our power; we fail to accept +the inevitable with a good grace; we refuse to believe in our +circumscriptions, our limitations, and in our arrogance and pride +express our anger, our indignation, our impatience. + +I have seen people whose auto has broken down, worried fearfully +because they would not arrive somewhere as they planned, and in their +impatient fretfulness they annoyed, angered, and upset all around +them, without, in one single degree, improving their own condition +or hastening the repair of the disaster. What folly; what more than +childish foolishness. + +A child may be excused for its impatience and petulance for it has not +yet learned the inevitable facts of life--such as that breaks must be +repaired, tires must be made so that they will not leak, and that the +gasoline tank cannot be empty if the machine is to run. But a man, a +woman, is supposed to have learned these incontrovertible facts, and +should, at the same time, have learned acquiesence in them. + +A train is delayed; one has an important engagement; worry seems +inevitable and excusable. But is it? Where is the use? Will it replace +the destroyed bridge, renew the washed out track, repair the broken +engine? How much better to submit to the inevitable with graceful +acceptance of the fact, than to fret, stew, worry, and at the same +time, irritate everyone around you. + +How serenely Nature rebukes the impatience of the fretful worrier. A +man plants corn, wheat, barley, potatoes--or trees, that take five, +seven years to come to bearing, such as the orange, olive, walnut, +date, etc. Let him fret ever so much, worry all he likes, chafe and +fret every hour; let him go and dig up his seeds or plants to urge +their upgrowing; let him even swear in his impatient worry and +threaten to smash all his machinery, discharge his men, and turn +his stock loose; Nature goes on her way, quietly, unmoved, serenely, +unhurried, undisturbed by the folly of the one creature of earth who +is so senseless as to worry--viz., man. + +Many a man's hair has turned gray, and many a woman's brow and +cheeks have become furrowed because of fretful, impatient worry over +something that could not be changed, or hastened, or improved. + +My conception of life is that manhood, womanhood, should rise superior +to any and all conditions and circumstances. Whatever happens, Spirit +should be supreme, superior, in control. And until we learn that +lesson, life, so far, has failed. Inasmuch as we do learn it, life has +become a success. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE WORRIES OF ANTICIPATION + + +He crosses every bridge before he comes to it, is a graphic and +proverbial rendering of a description of the man who worries in +anticipation. Something, sure, is going to happen. He is always +fearful, not of what is, but of what is going to be. For twenty years +he has managed to live and pay his rent, but at the beginning of each +month he begins afresh to worry where "next month's rent is going +to come from." He's collected his bills fairly well for a business +life-time, but if a debtor fails to send in his check on the very day +he begins to worry and fear lest he fail to receive it. His wife has +given him four children, but at the coming of the fifth he is sure +something extraordinarily painful and adverse is going to happen. + +He sees--possibly, here, I should say, _she_ sees--their son climbing +a tree. She is sure he will fall and break a leg, an arm, or his neck. +Her boy mustn't ride the horse lest he fall and injure himself; if he +goes to swim he is surely in danger of being drowned, and she could +never allow him or his sister to row in a boat lest it be overturned. +The child must be watched momentarily, lest it fall out of the window, +search out a sharp knife, swallow poison, or do some irreparable +damage to the bric-a-brac. + +Here let me relate an incident the truth of which is vouched for, and +which clearly illustrates the difference between the attitude of worry +and that of trust. One day, when Flattich, a pious minister of the +Wurtemberg, was seated in his armchair, one of his foster children +fell out of a second-story window, right before him, to the pavement +below. He calmly ordered his daughter to go and bring up the child. +On doing so it was found the little one had sustained no injury. +A neighbor, however, aroused by the noise, came in and reproached +Flattich for his carelessness and inattention. While she was thus +remonstrating, her own child, which she had brought with her, fell +from the bench upon which she had seated it, and broke its arm. "Do +you see, good woman," said the minister, "if you imagine yourself to +be the sole guardian of your child, then you must constantly carry it +in your arms. I commend my children to God; and even though they then +fall, they are safer than were I to devote my whole time and attention +to them." + +Those who anticipate evils for their children too often seem to bring +down upon their loved ones the very evils they are afraid of. And one +of the greatest lessons of life, and one that brings immeasurable +and uncountable joys when learned, is, that Nature--the great +Father-Mother of us all--is kindly disposed to us. We need not be so +alarmed, so fearful, so anticipatory of evil at her hands. + +Charles Warren Stoddard used to tell of the great dread Mark Twain was +wont to feel, during the exhaustion and reaction he felt at the close +of each of his lectures, lest he should become incapable of further +writing and lecturing and therefore become dependent upon his friends +and die a pauper. How wonderfully he conquered this demon of perpetual +worry all those who know his life are aware; how that, when his +publisher failed he took upon himself a heavy financial burden, for +which he was in no way responsible, went on a lecture tour around the +world and paid every cent of it, and finally died with his finances in +a most prosperous condition. + +The anticipatory worries of others are just as senseless, foolish and +absurd as were those of Mark Twain, and it is possible for every man +to overcome them, even as did he. + +The cloud we anticipate seldom, if ever, comes, and then, generally, +in a different direction from where we sought it. Time spent on +looking for the cloud, and figuring how much of injury it will do +us had better be utilized in garnering the hay crop, bringing in the +lambs, or hauling warm fodder and bedding for them. + +There is another side, however, to this worrying anticipation of +troubles. The ancient philosophers recognized it. Lucan wrote: "The +very fear of approaching evil has driven many into peril." + +There are those who believe that the very concentration of thought +upon a possible evil will bring to pass the peculiar arrangement of +circumstances that makes the evil. Of this belief I am not competent +to speak, but I am fully assured that it is far from helpful to be +contemplating the possibility of evil. In my own life I have found +that worrying over evils in anticipation has not prevented their +coming, and, on the other hand, that where I have boldly faced the +situation, without fear and its attendant worries, the evil has fled. + +Hence, whether worries in hand, or worries to come, worries real or +worries imaginary, the wise, sane and practical course is to kill them +all and thus _Quit Your Worrying_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +HOW OUR WORRY AFFECTS OTHERS + + +If worry affected merely ourselves it would be bad enough, but we +could tolerate it more than we do. For it is one of the infernal +characteristics of worry that our manifestation of it invariably +affects others as injuriously as it affects ourselves. + +An employer who worries his employees never gets the good work out +of them as does the one who has sense enough to keep them happy, +good-natured and contented. I was lecturing once for a large +corporation. I had two colleagues, who "spelled me" every hour. For +much of the time we had no place to rest, work or play between our +lectures. Our engagement lasted the better part of a year, and the +result was that, during that period where our reasonable needs were +unprovided for, we all failed to give as good work as we were capable +of. We were unnecessarily worried by inadequate provision and our +employers suffered. Henry Ford, and men of his type have learned this +lesson. Men respond rapidly to those who do not worry them. Governor +Hunt and Warden Sims, of Arizona, have learned the same fact in +dealing with prisoners of the State Penitentiary. The less the men +are "worried" by unnecessarily harsh treatment, absurd and cruel +restrictions, curtailment of natural rights, the better they act, the +easier they are liable to reform and make good. + +Dr. Musgrove to his _Nervous Breakdowns_, tells a story of two +commanders which well illustrates this point: + + In a certain war two companies of men had to march an equal + distance in order to meet at a particular spot. The one + arrived in perfect order, and with few signs of exhaustion, + although the march had been an arduous one. The other company + reached the place utterly done up and disorganised. It was all + a question of leadership; the captain of the first company + had known his way and kept his men in good order, while the + captain of the second company had never been sure of himself, + and had harassed his subordinates with a constant succession + of orders and counter-orders, until they had hardly known + whether they were on their heads or their heels. That was why + they arrived completely demoralised. + +In war, as in peace, it is not work that kills so much as worry. +A general may make his soldiers work to the point of exhaustion as +Napoleon often did, yet have their almost adoring worship. But the +general who worries his men gets neither their good will nor good +work. + +A worrying mother can keep a whole house in a turmoil, from father +down to the latest baby. The growing boys and girls soon learn to +dread the name of "home," and would rather be in school, in the +backyard playing, in the attic, at the neighbors, or in the streets, +anywhere, than within the sound of their mother's worrying voice, +or frowning countenance. A worrying husband can drive his wife +distracted, and vice versa. I was dining not long ago with a couple +that, from outward appearance, had everything that heart could desire +to make them happy. They were young, healthy, had a good income, were +_both_ engaged in work they liked, yet the husband worried the +wife constantly about trifles. If she wished to set the table in a +particular way he worried because she didn't do it some other way; if +she drove one of their autos he worried because she didn't take the +other; and when she wore a spring-day flowery kind of a hat he worried +her because his mother never wore any other than a black hat. The +poor woman was distracted by the absolute absurdities, frivolities and +inconsequentialities of his worries, yet he didn't seem to have sense +to see what he was doing. So I gave him a plain practical talk--as I +had been drawn into a discussion of the matter without any volition on +my part--and urged him to quit irritating his wife so foolishly and so +unnecessarily. + +Some teachers worry their pupils until the latter fail to do the work +they are competent to do; and the want of success of many an ambitious +teacher can often be attributed to his, her, worrying disposition. +Remember, therefore, that when you worry you are making others unhappy +as well as yourself, you are putting a damper, a blight, upon other +lives as well as your own, you are destroying the efficiency of other +workers as well as your own, you are robbing others of the joy of life +which God intended them freely to possess. So that for the sake of +others, as well as your own, it becomes an imperative duty that you + +QUIT YOUR WORRYING. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +WORRY VERSUS INDIFFERENCE + + +The aim and object of all striving in life should be to grow more +human, more humane, less selfish, more helpful to our fellows. Any +system of life that fails to meet this universal need is predestined +to failure. When, therefore, I urge upon my readers that they quit +their worrying about their husbands or wives, sons and daughters, +neighbors and friends, the wicked and the good, I do not mean that +they are to harden their hearts and become indifferent to their +welfare. God forbid! No student of the human heart, of human life, and +of the Bible can long ignore the need of a caution upon these lines. +The sacred writer knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the +human heart as deceitful and desperately wicked. It is deceitful or it +would never blind people as it does to the inutility, the futility of +much of their goodness. A goodness that is wrapped up in a napkin, and +lies unused for the benefit of others, rots and becomes a putrid mass +of corruption. It can only remain good by being unselfishly used for +the good of others, and to prove that the human heart is desperately +wicked one needs only to look at the suffering endured by mankind +unnecessarily--suffering that organized society ought to prevent and +render impossible. + +The parable of the lost sheep was written to give us this needful +lesson. The shepherd, when he found one of his sheep gone, did not sit +down and wring his hands in foolish and useless worry as to what would +happen to the sheep, the dangers that would beset it, the thorns, +the precipices, the wolves. Nor did he count over the times he had +cautioned the sheep not to get away from its fellows. Granted that +it was conceited, self-willed, refused to listen to counsel, +disobedient--the main fact in the mind of the shepherd was that it was +lost, unprotected, in danger, afraid, cold, hungry, longing for the +sheepfold, the companionship of its fellows and the guardianship of +the shepherd. Hence, he went out eagerly and sympathetically, and +searched until he found it and brought it back to shelter. + +This, then, should be the spirit of those who have needed my +caution and advice to quit their worrying about their loved ones and +others--Do not worry, but do not, under any consideration, become +hard-hearted, careless, or indifferent. Better by far preserve your +interest and the human tenderness that leads you to the useless and +needless expenditure of energy and sympathy in worry than that you +should let your loved ones suffer without any care, thought, or +endeavor on their behalf. But do not let it be a sympathy that leads +to worry. Let it be helpful, stimulating, directive, energizing in the +good. Overcome evil with good. Resist evil and it will flee from you. +So long as those you love are absorbed in the things that in the past +have led you to worry over them, be tender and sympathetic with them, +surround them with your holy and helpful love. + +Jesus was tender and compassionate with all who were sick or diseased +in body or mind. He was never angry with any, save the proud and +self-righteous Pharisees. He tenderly forgave the adulterous woman, +justified the publican and never lectured or rebuked those who came to +have their bodily and mental infirmities removed by him. Let us then +be tender with the erring and the sinful, rather than censorious, +and full of rebuke. Is it not the better way to point out the +right--overcome the evil with the good, and thus bind our erring +loved ones more firmly to ourselves. Surely our own errors, failures, +weaknesses and sins ought to have taught us this lesson. + +In the bedroom of a friend where I recently slept, was a card on +which was illuminated these words, which bear particularly upon this +subject: + + The life that has not known and accepted sorrow is strangely + crude and untaught; it can neither help nor teach, for it has + never learned. The life that has spurned the lesson of sorrow, + or failed to read it aright, is cold and hard. But the life + that has been disciplined by sorrow is courageous and full of + holy and gentle love. + +And it is this holy, gentle, and courageous love that we need to +exercise every day towards those who require it, rather than the +worry that frets still more, irritates, and widens the gulf already +existent. So, reader, don't worry, but help, sympathetically and +lovingly, and above all, don't become indifferent, hard-hearted and +selfish. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +WORRIES AND HOBBIES + + +Though these words are much alike in sound they have no sympathy +one with another. Put them in active operation and they rush at each +other's throats far worse than Allies and Germans are now fighting. +They strive for a death grip, and as soon as one gets hold he hangs on +to the end--if he can. Yet, as in all conflicts, the right is sure to +win in an equal combat, the right of the hobby is absolutely certain +to win over the wrong of the worry. + +Webster defines a hobby as: "A subject or plan which one is constantly +setting off," or "a favorite and ever recurring theme of discourse, +thought, or effort," but the editor of _The Century Dictionary_ has +a better definition, more in accord with modern thought, viz., "That +which a person persistently pursues or dwells upon with zeal or +delight, as if riding a horse." + +Are you cursed by the demon of worry? Has he got a death grip on your +throat? Do you want to be freed from his throttling assaults? If +so, get a hobby, the more mentally occupying the better, and ride it +earnestly, sincerely, furiously. Let it be what it will, it will +far more than pay in the end, when you find yourself free from the +nightmare of worry that has so relentlessly ridden you for so long. +Collect bugs, old china, Indian baskets, Indian blankets, pipes, +domestic implements, war paraphanalia, photographs, butterflies; make +an herbarium of the flowers of your State; collect postage stamps, old +books, first editions; go in for extra-illustrating books; pick up and +classify all the stray phrases you hear--do anything that will occupy +your mind to the exclusion of worry. + +And let me here add a thought--the more unselfish you can make your +hobby the better it will be for you. Perhaps I can put it even in a +better way yet: The less your hobby is entered into with the purely +personal purpose of pleasing yourself, and the more actively you can +make it beneficial, helpful, joy-giving to others, the more potent +for good it will be in aiding you to get rid of your worries. He who +blesses another is thrice blessed, for he not only blesses himself by +the act, but brings upon himself the blessing of the recipient and of +Almighty God, with the oft-added blessing of those who learn of +the good deed and breathe a prayer of commendation for him. In San +Francisco there is a newspaper man who writes in a quaint, peculiar, +simple, yet subtle fashion, who signs himself "K.C.B." During the +Panama-Pacific Exposition one of his hobbies was to plan to take there +all the poor youngsters of the streets, the newsboys, the little ones +in hospitals, the incurables, the down-and-outers of the work-house +and poor-farm, and finally, the almost forgotten old men and women of +the almshouses. + +I saw strong men weep with deep emotion at the procession of +automobiles conveying the happy though generally silent throngs on +one of these occasions, and "K.C.B." must have felt the showers of +blessings that were sent in his direction from those who saw and +appreciated his beautiful helpfulness. + +There is nothing to hinder any man, woman, youth or maiden from doing +exactly the same kind of thing, with the same spirit, and bringing +a few hours of happiness to the needy, thus driving worry out of the +mind, putting it _hors de combat_, so that it need never again rise +from the field. + +Every blind asylum, children's hospital, slum, old lady's home, old +man's home, almshouse, poor-farm, work-house, insane asylum, prison, +and a thousand other centers where the poor, needy, sick and afflicted +gather, has its lonely hearts that long for cherishing, aching brows +that need to be soothed, pain to be alleviated; and there is no +panacea so potent in removing the worries of our own life as to engage +earnestly in removing the positive and active ills of others. + +People occasionally ask me if I have any hobby that has helped me ward +off the attacks of worry. I do not believe I have ever answered this +question as fully as I might have done, so I will attempt to do so +now. One of my first hobbies was food reform and hygienic living. When +I was little more than twelve years of age I became a vegetarian +and for nine years lived the life pretty rigorously. I have always +believed that simpler, plainer living than most of us indulge in, more +open air life, sleeping, working, living out of doors, more active, +physical exercise of a useful character, would be beneficial. Then I +became a student of memory culture. Professor William Stokes of +the Royal Polytechnic Institution became my friend, and for years +I studied his system of Mnemonics, or as it was generally termed +"Artificial Memory." Then I taught it for a number of years, and +evolved from it certain fundamental principles upon which I have +largely based the cultivation of my own memory and mentality, and for +which I can never be sufficiently thankful. Then I desired to be a +public speaker. I became a "hobbyist" on pronunciation, enunciation, +purity of voice, phrasing and getting the thought of my own mind in +the best and quickest possible way into the minds of others. For years +I kept a small book in which I jotted down every word, its derivation +and full meaning with which I was not familiar. I studied clear +enunciation by the hour; indeed as I walked through the streets I +recited to myself, aloud, so that I could hear my own enunciation, +such poems as Southey's _Cataract of Lodore_, where almost every word +terminates in "ing." For I had heard many great English and American +speakers whose failure to pronounce this terminal "ing" in such +words as coming, going, etc., used to distress me considerably. Other +exercises were the catches, such as "Peter Piper picks a peck of +pickled peppers," or "Selina Seamstich stitches seven seams slowly, +surely, serenely and slovenly," or "Around a rugged rock a ragged +rascal ran a rural race." Then, too, Professor Stokes had composed a +wonderful yarn about the memory, entitled "My M-made memory medley, +mentioning memory's most marvelous manifestations." This took up as +much as three or four pages of this book, every word beginning with m. +It was a marvelous exercise for lingual development. He also had +"The Far-Famed Fairy Tale of Fenella," and these were constantly +and continuously recited, with scrupulous care as to enunciation. My +father was an old-time conductor of choral and oratorio societies, and +was the leader of a large choir. I had a good alto voice and under his +wise dicipline it was cultivated, and I was a certificated reader of +music at sight before I was ten years old. Then I taught myself +to play the organ, and before I was twenty I was the organist and +choir-master of one of the largest Congregational churches of my +native town, having often helped my father in the past years to drill +and conduct oratorios such as _The Messiah, Elijah, The Creation_, +etc. When I began to speak in public the only special instruction I +had for the cultivation of the voice was a few words from my father to +this effect: Stand before the looking-glass and insist that your face +appear pleasant and agreeable. Speak the sentence you wish to hear. +Listen to your own voice, you can tell as well as anyone else whether +its sound is nasal, harsh, raucous, disagreeable, affected, or in +any way displeasing or unnatural. Insist upon a pure, clear, natural, +pleasing tone, and that's all there is to it. When you appear before +an audience speak to the persons at the further end of the hall and +if they can hear you don't worry about anyone else. Later, when I had +become fairly launched as a public speaker, he came to visit me, and +when I appeared on my platform that night I found scattered around on +the floor, where none could see them but myself, several placards upon +which he had printed in easily-read capitals: Don't shout--keep cool. +Avoid ranting. Make each point clear. Don't ramble, etc. + +When I was about fourteen I took up phonography, or stenography as +it is now known. This was an aid in reporting speeches, making notes, +etc., but one of its greatest helps was in the matter of analysing the +sounds of words thus aiding me in their clear enunciation. + +At this time I was also a Sunday school teacher, and at sixteen years +of age, a local preacher in the Methodist church. This led to my +becoming an active minister of that denomination after I came to the +United States, and for seven years I was as active as I knew how to +be in the discharge of this work. In my desire to make my preaching +effective and helpful I studied unweariedly and took up astronomy, +buying a three inch telescope, and soon became elected to Fellowship +in the Royal Astronomical Society of England. Then I took up +microscopy, buying the fine microscope from Dr. Dallinger, President +of the Royal Microscopical Society, with which he had done his great +work on bacilli--and which, by-the-way, was later stolen from me--and +I was speedily elected a Fellow of that distinguished Society. A +little later Joseph Le Conte, the beloved geologist of the California +State University, took me under his wing, and set me to work solving +problems in geology, and I was elected, in due time, a Fellow of the +Geological Society of England, a society honored by the counsels of +such men as Tyndall, Murchison, Lyell, and all the great geologists of +the English speaking world. + +Just before I left the ministry, in 1889, I took up, with a great deal +of zeal, the study of the poet Browning. I had already yielded to the +charm of Ruskin--whom I personally knew--and Carlyle, but Browning +opened up a new world of elevated thought to me, in which I am still +a happy dweller. In seeking a new vocation I naturally gravitated +towards several lines of thought and study, all of which have +influenced materially my later life, and all of which I pursued with +the devotion accorded only to hobbies. These were I: A deeper study +of Nature, in her larger and manifestations, as the Grand Canyon of +Arizona, the Petrified Forest, the Yosemite Valley, the Big Trees, the +High Sierras, (with their snow-clad summits, glaciers, lakes, canyons, +forests, flora and fauna), the Colorado and Mohave Deserts, the +Colorado River, the Painted Desert, and the many regions upon which I +have written books. II: The social conditions of the submerged tenth, +which led to my writing of a book on _The Dark Places of Chicago_ +which was the stimulating cause of W.T. Stead's soul-stirring book _If +Christ Came to Chicago_. Here was and is the secret of my interest in +all problems dealing with social unrest, the treatment of the poor +and sinful, etc., for I was Chaplain for two years of two homes for +unfortunate women and girls. III. A deeper study of the Indians, in +whom I had always been interested, and which has led to my several +books on the Indians themselves, their Basketry, Blanketry, etc. IV. A +more detailed study of the literature of California and the West, and +also, V. A more comprehensive study of the development of California +and other western states, in order that I might lecture more +acceptably upon these facinating themes. + +Here, then, are some of the hobbies that have made, and are making, my +life what it is. I leave it to my readers to determine which has +been the better--to spend my hours, days, weeks, months and years in +getting my livelihood and worrying, or in providing for my family +and myself, and spending all the spare time I had upon these many and +varied hobbies, some of which have developed into my life-work. And +I sincerely hope I shall be absolved from any charge of either +self-glorification or egotism in this recital of personal experiences. +At the time I was passing through them I had no idea of their great +value. They were the things to which something within me bade me flee +to find refuge from the worries that were destroying me, and it is +because of their triumphant success that I now recount them, in the +fervent desire that they may bring hope to despondent souls, give +courage to those who are now wavering, uncertain and pessimistic, and +thus rid them of the demons of fret and worry. + +Now that I have come to my final words where all my final admonitions +should be placed, I find I have little left to say, I have said it +all, reader, in the chapters you have read (or skipped.) Indeed I have +not so much cared to preach to you myself, as to encourage, incite +you to do your own preaching. This is, by far, the most effective, +permanent and lasting. Improvement can come only from within. A seed +of desire may be sown by an outsider, but it must grow in the soil of +your soul, be harbored, sheltered, cared for, and finally beloved by +your own very self, before it will flower into new life _for you_. +That you may possess this new life--a life of work, of achievement, of +usefulness to others--is my earnest desire, and this can come only to +its fullest fruition in those who have learned to QUIT WORRYING. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Quit Your Worrying!, by George Wharton James + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUIT YOUR WORRYING! *** + +***** This file should be named 12813.txt or 12813.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/8/1/12813/ + +Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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