In the summertime, gardening is a splendid form of exercise. And so is the care of a small flock of chickens, which is possible for those living in the smaller towns. It is always better, when taking outdoor exercise, to have something definite to do. When walking it is a good plan, if you can, to have some definite place to go. And if you have an agreeable companion to keep up a rapid-fire talk, that will help also.
All these things are mentally stimulating.
Then, if possible, sleep the year round on a sleeping porch. If you don"t possess a porch, then, have all the windows in your sleeping room wide open day and night.
If for a time you have to take physic, it is best to take some hot mineral water half an hour before breakfast. But adhering to dieting and exercise, and eating enough apples, usually overcomes constipation.
Now, there are some things about which a person must use his own good judgment. For instance, if you have any bad teeth you should at once go to a good dentist and have them attended to. n.o.body with bad teeth can have good health.
Again, if your tonsils have become mere pus sacs you will have to go to a good nose and throat specialist and have them removed before you can expect to have good health. This, however, applies to all people, whether nervous or not.
The same thing is true with regard to your eyes. If you are suffering from eye strain because you need gla.s.ses, you cannot hope to get well of "nerves" until your eyes are properly fitted to gla.s.ses by some reliable eye specialist. These are things that each individual must discover and do for himself. He should consult a dentist, an oculist, an aurist, or other specialist according to his particular need.
V. EFFECT OF RIGHT LIVING ON WORRY AND UNHAPPINESS
"Neither melancholy nor any other affection of the mind can hurt bodies governed with temperance and regularity."
--CORNARO
A very sad thing about some nervous people is the fact that in their lives there are domestic or other troubles which no physician can overcome. Some of them live in depressing surroundings, but for all these there is hope. There is no doubt that if we can restore the brain to a perfectly normal, healthful state the human being can bear more suffering than when the brain is affected. Perhaps when speaking of the spirit we had better call it that, rather than the brain, for that mysterious something we call spirit does make its home in the brain of man. This has been proven scientifically. So then, in this life the temple of the spirit, or soul, does affect the mind. And when I say this life, I take the opportunity to say here that I not only believe in the immortality of the soul, but now, at 45, I am as certain of it as I am of my own existence. But for some reason--although as yet no one understands why it should do so--when this temple in which the spirit dwells is out of condition, it affects the soul or spirit. So, you see, if we can make the physical man or woman well, we most certainly can help the spirit that dwells within the body.
And so I recommend dieting, temperance in eating, and the careful chewing of food to all those sufferers who unfortunately live in depressing surroundings and cannot get away from them. When referring to the many pitiful letters I have received from poor human beings thus situated, I realize that I am treading on sacred ground. Such things are written, of course, to a physician in confidence and the confidence must therefore be forever sacred. I have not only had letters from these unfortunate people, but have repeatedly come in contact with many of them in their every day life. I know well what added suffering such conditions bring to them.
I know of nothing in this world more pitiful than a n.o.ble, high-spirited, ambitious woman, pure and clean of heart, who marries a man and becomes the mother of his children and is then condemned to live the life of a mere animal. And all too frequently the opposite also obtains. Sometimes a man of high, pure purpose finds that he has chosen as the mother of his children a coa.r.s.e, sensual woman. Now why in the world were these two people attracted to each other? This is one of life"s biggest puzzles to those who have thought much along this line.
In many instances extreme youth is the reason given. While youth is mating time, it also is the time of bad judgment. Thousands of young people have made this dreadful mistake simply because they married too young. On the other hand, youth is not altogether to blame. When people, young or old, are courting, each individual endeavors to appear at his or her best before the other. Without being actually aware of it, under such circ.u.mstances both man and woman are doing all that lies in their power to deceive one another.
If people would do their courting in everyday clothes, and if the girl would go about her housework while the man looked on, or better still, if he helped her with it for one or two years, they would undoubtedly become better acquainted.
But, after all, except, perhaps, in unusual cases, there is absolutely nothing by which people know that they are going to be properly mated.
If a man with a tendency to neurasthenia breaks down and is tied to a nagging wife, that is usually the last straw in the way of his recovery.
This is just as true of the woman who breaks down and has a nagging husband. There are, I regret to say, thousands of such cases all over the country. On the other hand I have had a man come to me and say that he was willing to do anything on earth to aid his wife, but he could not get her to diet or even to make a serious attempt to get well. I am always tremendously sorry for such a man because he has a mighty heavy burden to bear. Such a wife should try to get well as much for the man"s sake as for her own. She should understand that she is needlessly torturing the one best friend she has on earth.
A woman of this kind should remember that, no matter how much she may suffer, she is hopelessly selfish if she will not do all in her power to diet and to obey other necessary rules that will enable her to get rid of the malady. Sometimes when a physician puts this before her kindly but firmly it results in her making a beginning and by and by getting well. I have seen this happen many times. And I wish to say right here that while I believe I was born with some natural tact, yet if I had not gone through all this horrible suffering myself I should not, I know, be able to say the things that would induce these people to do that which it is their duty to do.
And here is one big difficulty I have always had to contend with. Some of these people have tried so many so-called nonsense cures--eating b.u.t.termilk tablets, for instance--and have had no benefit from them, that they are unwilling to try the one and only thing that will cure them--the thing that will cure them as sure as the sun shines. I wonder why it is that since the time of Christ people are always looking for a sensational or miraculous cure. Our life and everything pertaining to it is miracle enough, if we only had the sense to see it.
The woman or the man with "nerves" is not going to get well eating b.u.t.termilk tablets or taking patent dope while lying on a couch and shut in a house. You must bestir yourself. You must get out of doors, and above all, you must eat right. Today thousands of these people are languishing in hospitals and sanitariums, and most of them will come out only to go back again and again. The inst.i.tutional treatment is good for the beginning of the cure, but if an individual with "nerves" is going to get well and stay well he must change his lifelong habits.
And I want to say again, that any person, man or woman, in the midst of depressing conditions can triumph over them if he will eat as he should and live as he should. There is something about the human soul, if it is pure and fine, and if proper attention is given to right living, that will enable a person to meet great sorrow and triumph over it. In fact, no amount of sorrow can defeat a person who keeps his heart and body right.
And I would have you all realize that there is something far more to us than mere bones and veins and nerves. I know the terrible tendency of the one with "nerves" to get angry. But lay fast hold of yourself. Fight anger as you would poison, because in reality it is poison to your nerves. Anger will hurt you; it will hurt anybody. But no matter how hard you find it at first, get control of your temper. If you succeed in doing this in a year you will have won one of the greatest victories man can win in this world. I would rather meet a so-called plain man who has perfect control over his physical and mental faculties, and sit and talk quietly with him, than to meet the Prime Minister of England or the President of the United States if either lacked this control. For I say to you that no matter what others may say, the true measure of success does not rest in the position you occupy but in your having complete control of yourself.
If you are to gain this control it means that each day you are confronted by a mighty big task, but if finally successful, you will have accomplished the greatest thing a man can do in this life. Now, here is something for you to take hold of, you who all these years have believed that your life ambition has been thwarted. But your ambition, let me tell you, has not been thwarted. Perhaps you have not done just what you wanted to do. But it"s quite possible that you had no business trying to do that special thing anyway. Most of us, I find, can be greatly mistaken about what we think we want to do. At any rate, we can never be happy unless we gain entire control of ourselves.
This is something the person afflicted with "nerves" most certainly can do, and he can use this terrible "thing" as I myself and thousands of others have used it as a ladder to climb to the sunlit peaks where worry and clouds and storms cannot trouble. And, after all, no matter who we are, no matter how poor or how rich we are, and no matter where we live, life holds about the same general possibilities for all of us. I mean by this that life affords to all the same opportunities for real happiness.
I know very well that there are those who will be quite unwilling to grant this, but it is as true as the life we live. Many people in this old world still hold the notion that those who roll in wealth are the happy ones. But I say to you this notion is all wrong, and from knowledge gained through experience I know that in their hearts many of these wealthy people are dissatisfied and not one whit happier than you are. The most restless people, the most unhappy people, and the most thoroughly dissatisfied people that I have ever met have been people who had everything that riches could give them.
Andrew Carnegie said he had noticed that after a man had acc.u.mulated a million dollars smiles were seldom seen on his face. I cannot understand why people insist on going through life making themselves and all those they really love miserable just because they do not happen to have riches.
And a great many high-strung sensitive men are utterly cast down because they have failed to acquire wealth by the time they are forty-five or fifty years of age.
I wish I could make all such poor, afflicted people see what goes to make up happiness and learn the only way to be happy. In order to get well the thing we have to do is to follow nature"s simple rules--rules our Creator gave to us. We must get control not only of our appet.i.tes but of all such pa.s.sions as anger, hate, and envy, which poison our bodies. And let us also cast suspicion out of our minds. This is a good rule to observe: Never suspect folks. It is useless, anyway, for by and by what they are or what they do is always bound to come to the surface.
By gaining perfect control over yourself--and most certainly to do so is worth every effort you may make--you will also gain patience, and that is, I think, one of the crowning virtues. Sometimes I think it the greatest of all virtues. Certainly it stands very high in the perfecting of character.
To the sufferer with "nerves" I would say: Have the courage to believe that you are going to get well. Then you can do it. No matter how depressing or discouraging your surroundings, do the very best you can every day. Then, no matter what your ideas of success may have been, you are really succeeding wonderfully! See that you keep right on doing it! If you are a mother and have children, live for them. Or if you are a father and have children, and have met with disappointments, live for those children! Do everything in your power to make them happy, high of heart, and gallant of soul. Do not live for yourself, live for your children. If you have no children of your own, look about and get interested in some other person"s children. You will find a lot of children all around you--blessed little beings--that you can help to make happy. Get your mind off yourself and your troubles and on the children of this world, and keep it there.
When you were a child no doubt you had many happy days. Some of us had a very happy childhood, while others may have been denied what their hearts desired. But if we did not have a happy childhood that is all the more reason why we should be glad to help some other little ones have a happy one. More and more each year I live I come to believe that it depends entirely upon grown people whether in this world children are happy or not happy.
If you had a happy childhood--and most people had--do you not recall the glorious times you had? I know you do, for we all do. And I know, too, how much people affected with nerves dwell on those memories, and how much they wish they might go back to those blessed days when the sun was always shining and the birds were always singing and the streams always beckoning them to play along their sands.
Do you realize that you can live in those days again? I do, and I go back and dwell in them more and more the older I get. I do not mean that I am not looking forward, for I am, tremendously.
How stupid we poor miserable creatures of this world become after we leave our childhood days behind us! We really should never lose sight of them. I have said that the person afflicted with "nerves" should not run. I did not quite mean all that implies. After such a man has recovered, if he has a good heart, he should run a little. I run; I can"t help it. I feel so good I have to run a little now and then to work off steam. But you know very well when most people see a man running they at once think a house is afire somewhere.
It is almost unbelievable that we should actually surround ourselves with so many utterly senseless customs that tend to nothing but misery and unhappiness. We should dress for comfort, and we should have the courage to live in a youthful world where all may be happy. "If the blind lead the blind," so the Bible tells us, "both shall fall into the ditch." We need so to live and act that we shall not fail to be happy.
Happiness really is what everybody is chasing, but how very far away from it most people are getting! Go back to the memories of your childhood. Be with children and play with them all you possibly can. If you are a mother, begin this very day to exercise more patience with your children, recalling over and over again that when you were a child you were just as they are. And remember, for it is only too true, that the day is fast coming when your little boy will no longer be a little boy, he will be a man, and will have gone away from you. Then many times you will wish him back, and you will look back on those days when you thought your nerves were being ruined, and feel a great swelling in your breast, and breathing a sigh, whisper to yourself, "Dear G.o.d, I hope I did all I ought to have done for him while he was little."
I know that any one can live with children and find happiness in being one with them, and I know of no better thing to do. After we have hold of ourselves with a firm grip we should endeavor to do this.
I have had people suffering with "nerves" tell me they had lost a little boy or a little girl, and that it seems impossible to get over this loss. I cannot tell you how much I long to help such people. But I always urge them to go right on playing with other children and to remember, for to me it is certain truth, that they will meet that little child again. There should be nothing to grieve about in such a loss. To find compensation, the one who has had such a grief has only to keep on playing the part of a true man or true woman. Childhood with all its pains and pleasures is everywhere about us. And childhood is only the beginning of immortality.
Late one night, a number of years ago, I was sitting in a little restaurant in a western town, and was feeling very lonely and miserable.
Sorrow weighed heavily upon me that night and the world never seemed blacker, yet I think my belief in the immortality of the soul had never been more certain. I looked up and high on the smoke-stained wall hung a painted picture of an old-time ship with many sails set. This painting pictured the ship sailing through the darkness of night. But through the dark, seemingly restless clouds the moon gleamed brightly on the white canvas of the sails.
I had never before been so powerfully impressed by any picture. It seemed fairly to speak to me. I took an envelope from my pocket and set down the verses given here. These verses were afterwards published in one or two metropolitan papers. Mr. James Bryce, then English Amba.s.sador at Washington, saw them and wrote me a beautiful letter about them, in which he said, "Your little poem "The Last Journey" attracts me very much." You see he was beginning to grow old, and I knew that was the reason these lines of mine had made an appeal to him.
Not very long after this I also had a letter about the verses from Dr.
Osler, then Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. In it he said, "I have read your little poem "The Last Journey" with unusual interest."
And again I knew why. You see, it does not matter very much what our rank or our station here, no matter whether a human being is a king or what his station in life may be, he still is a human being. We are all reaching out after the same great thing. The fine thing about the sentiment of these little verses is that although you wish to and may not believe it, it is coming true anyway.
THE LAST JOURNEY
One night when in a youthful dream, I saw a moonlit sea, And sailing o"er its dark expanse, A ship of mystery.
The lonely traveler seemed to be On some great mission bound, As o"er the darkened waters It sailed without a sound.
Long years have pa.s.sed; old age has come: The fire of life is low.
Again I think of that strange dream Of youth so long ago.