Observe, now, that this woman has other distresses, in the way of aches
and feebleness. The prominent thing in her mind, nervousness, is but one
of the symptomatic results of her condition. She feels that to be the
greatest evil, and that it is which she puts forward. What does she
mean by nervousness, and what does it do with her which makes it so
unpleasant? Remark also that this is not one of the feebler sisters who
accept this ill as a natural result, and who condone for themselves the
moral and social consequences as things over which they have little or
no reasonable control. The person who asks this fertile question has
once been well, and resents as unnatural the weaknesses and incapacities
which now she feels. She wants to be helped, and will help you to help
her. You have an active ally, not a passive fool who, too, desires to be
made well, but can give you no potent aid. There are many kinds of fool,
from the mindless fool to the fiend-fool, but for the most entire
capacity to make a household wretched there is no more complete human
receipt than a silly woman who is to a high degree nervous and feeble,
and who craves pity and likes power. But to go back to the more helpful
case. If you are wise, you ask what she means by nervousness. You soon
learn that she suffers in one of two, or probably in both of two, ways.
The parentage is always mental in a large sense, the results either
mental or physical or both. She has become doubtful and fearful, where
formerly she was ready-minded and courageous. Once decisive, she is now
indecisive. When well, unemotional, she is now too readily disturbed by
a sad tale or a startling newspaper-paragraph. A telegram alarms her;
even an unopened letter makes her hesitate and conjure up dreams of
disaster. Very likely she is irritable and recognizes the
unreasonableness of her temper. Her daily tasks distress her sorely. She
can no longer sit still and sew or read. Conversation no longer
interests, or it even troubles her. Noises, especially sudden noises,
startle her, and the cries and laughter of children have become
distresses of which she is ashamed, and of which she complains or not,
as her nature is weak or enduring. Perhaps, too, she is so restless as
to want to be in constant motion, but that seems to tire her as it once
did not. Her sense of moral proportion becomes impaired. Trifles grow
large to her; the grasshopper is a burden. With all this, and in a
measure out of all this, come certain bodily disabilities. The telegram
or any cause of emotion sets her to shaking. She cries for no cause; the
least alarm makes her hand shake, and even her writing, if she should
chance to become the subject of observation when at the desk, betrays
her state of tremor. What caused all this trouble? What made her, as
she says, good for nothing? I have, of course, put an extreme case. We
may, as a rule, be pretty sure, as to this condition, that the woman has
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