The mind, like the body, contracts tricks and habits which in time become automatic and involuntary--habits of association, tricks of repetition, of which the excess is monomania, but which, without attaining to quite that extreme, become more or less masters of the brain and directors of the thoughts. And, of all these tricks of the mind, the habit of fear is the most insidious and persistent. It is seldom that any one who has once given in to it is able to clear himself of it again. However unreasonable it may be, the trick clings, and it would take an exceptionally strong intellect to be convinced of its folly and learn the courage of common-sense. But this is just the intellect which does not allow itself to contract the habit in the beginning; a coward being for the most part a washy, weak kind of being, with very little backbone anyhow. We do not mean by this fear that which is physical and personal only, though this is generally the sole idea which people have of the word; but moral and mental cowardice as well. Personal fear indeed, is common enough, and as pitiable as it is common; and we are ashamed to say that it is not confined to women, though naturally it is more predominant with them than with men. As for women, the tyranny of fear lies very heavy on them, taking the flavour out of many a life which else would be perfectly happy; being often the only bitter drop in a cup full of sweetness. But how bitter that drop is!--bitter enough to destroy all the sweetness of the rest. Some women live in the perpetual presence of dread, both mental and personal. It surrounds them like an atmosphere; it clothes them like a garment; day by day, and from night to morning, it dogs their steps and sits like a nightmare on their hearts; it is their very root work of sensation, and they could as soon live without food as live without fear. Ludicrous as many of their terrors are, we still cannot help pitying these poor self-made martyrs of imaginary danger. Take that most familiar of all forms of fear among women, the fear of burglars, and let us imagine for a moment the horror of the life which is haunted by a nightly dread--by a terror that comes with as unfailing regularity as the darkness--and measure, if we can, the amount of anguish that must be endured before death comes to take off the torture. There are many women to whom night is simply this time of torture, never varying, never relieved. They dare not lock their doors, because then they would be at the mercy of the man who sooner or later is to come in at the window; and if they hear the boards creak or the furniture crack they are in agonies because of the man who they are sure is in the house, and who will come in at the door. They cannot sleep if they have not looked all about the room--under the bed, behind the curtains, into the closet, where perhaps a dress hanging a little fantastically gives them a nervous start that lasts for the night.