Our Nervous Friends | Page 8

which neither loss of servant, death of child nor advancing age can
take away.


CHAPTER III
THE PRICE OF NERVOUSNESS
The price we pay for defective nerves is one of mankind's big burdens.
Humanity reaches its vaunted supremacy, it realizes the heights of

manhood and womanhood through its power to meet what the day
brings, to collect the best therefrom and to fit itself profitably to use
that best for the good of its kind. And these possibilities are all
dependent on the superb, complicated nervous system. The miracles of
right and wise living are rooted deep in the nerve-centers. Man's
nervous system is his adjusting mechanism--his indicator revealing the
proper methods of reaction. Nothing man will ever make can rival its
sensitiveness and capacity. But when it is out of order, trouble is certain.
Excessive, imperfect, inadequate reactions will occur and disintegrating
forms of response to ourselves and our surroundings will certainly
become habitual, unless wise and resolute readjustments are made. The
common failure of the many to find the best, even the good in life, is
apparent to all--so common indeed, that the search for the perfectly
adjusted man, physically, mentally, morally adjusted, is about as
fruitful as Diogenes' daylight excursions with his lantern. The physical,
mental and moral are intricately related even as the primary colors in
the rainbow. Our nerves enter intimately into every feeling, thought, act
of life, into every function of our bodies, into every aspiration of our
souls. They determine our digestion and our destinies; they may even
influence the destinies of others. Let us turn a few pages of a life and
see the cost of defective nervous-living.
The Pullman was crowded; every berth had been sold; the train was
loaded with holiday travelers, and the ever interesting bridal couple had
the drawing-room. The aisle was cluttered with valises and suitcases;
the porter was feverishly making down a berth; while bolstered on a
pile of pillows, surrounded by a number of anxious faces, lay the sick
woman, the source of the commotion and the anxiety. Sobs followed
groans, and exclamations followed sobs-- apparently only an intense
effort of self-control kept her from screaming. She held her head.
Periodically, it seemed to relieve her to tear at her hair. She held her
breath, she clutched her throat, she covered her eyes as though she
would shut out every glimpse of life. She convulsively pressed her
heart to keep it from bursting through; she clasped and wrung her hands,
and now and then would crowd her forearm between her teeth to shut in
her pent-up anguish. She would have thrown herself from the seat but
for the unobtrusive little man who knelt in front to keep her from

falling, and gently held her on as she spasmodically writhed. His plain,
unromantic face showed deep anxiety, not unmixed with fear. He was
eagerly assisted by the dear old lady who sat in front. Hers was
mother-heart clear through; her satchel had been disturbed to the depths
in her search for remedies long faithful in alleviating ministration; her
camphor bottle lay on the floor, impulsively struck from her kind hand
by the convulsed woman. The sweet-faced college girl who sat opposite
had just finished a year in physiology and this was her first opportunity
to use her new knowledge. "Loosen her collar and lower her head and
let her have more air," she advised. "Yes," said the little man, "I'm her
husband you see, and am a doctor. I've seen her this way before and
those things don't help."
The drummer, who had the upper berth, had retreated at the first sign of
trouble to the safety of the smoking-room, and was apparently trying
more completely to hide himself in clouds of obscuring cigar smoke.
The passengers were all cowed into attentive quietude; the sympathetic
had offered their help, while the others found satisfaction for their
aloofness in agreement with the sophisticated porter, who, after he had
assisted in safely depositing the writhing woman behind the green
curtains and had been rather roughly treated by her protesting heels,
shrewdly opined to the smoking-room refugees that "That woman sho
has one case o' high-strikes." The berth, however, proved no
panacea--she was "suffocating," she must get out of the smoke and dust,
she must get away from "those people" or she would stifle, and to the
other symptoms were added paroxysms of coughing and gasping which
sent shivers through the whole car of her sympathizers. Her husband
explained that she was just out of a hospital, which they had left
unexpectedly for home, that she never could sleep in a berth, and if
they could only get the drawing-room so he could be alone with her he
thought he could get her to sleep, but he did not