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