Wives 203 Woman's Beauty 94 Worry 9 Dedicated to Nancy, my wife FOREWORD Each evening, just before retiring, we will have a little Round-Up of the day's doings, of the problems in our business and home life, of our hopes and ambitions. We'll try to solve perplexities, dissolve worries, absolve ourselves from pull-backs, and resolve to better our lives. We'll plan and prepare that we may have more poise--efficiency--peace; that's Pep. We'll learn how to establish helpful thought habit that our lives may be full of gladsome notes instead of gruesome gloom. We'll aim at LIFE--LOVE--LAUGHTER These, then, are the purposes of this book. WM. C. HUNTER, Kansas City, Mo. July 18, 1915. WORRY The Nerve Racking Pace That Causes "Americanitis" Nervous breakdowns are increasing as a result of the American worry phobia. This high tension Americanitis presumes too much upon nature, by persistently forcing the nerves to carry loads far beyond their capacity. So many people are pleasure mad, they become so deadened by excess of enjoyment and indulgence that ordinary pleasure is uninteresting. They seek unnatural excitement, original methods and unusual activities to appease the appetite. Then they become blase and constitutional pessimists. It's a maddening, nerve racking pace they go. To keep up the gait there is an incessant battle for wealth, and the struggle wears and weakens the nervous systems. Both men and women go the terrific gait. Men and women having this health-destroying worry, mate and marry and they lay foundations for deficient progeny that suffers from the sins of the parents. The phobia is almost universal; it has permeated all classes of society from highest to lowest. Excitement, that's the keynote; for the rich there is society and polo and useless functions and conventions. Society is a game of cards, not only playing cards for money, but the card convention of paying calls by leaving pasteboards in lieu of the old-fashioned visit. Society is the builder of fourflushers, the generator of insincerity--falsehood and rottenness. For the poor, the aping of the rich, in dress the wearers can ill afford, the picture shows, the cheap theatres, the automobile, bought with a mortgage on the home. It's rush, push, excitement at any cost. The great cost which they don't seem to consider is the cost of the nerves. We all enter the world with an abundance of nerve energy, and by conserving that energy we can adapt and adjust our nerve equipment to keep pace with the progress and evolution of our times. The way to preserve and conserve nerve equilibrium and power is to rest and relax the nerves each day. You may rest them by a change of the thought habit each day, by relaxation, by sleep, and by suggestions made in this book.