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.