Confessions of a Neurasthenic Part 2

Calisthenics being an esthetic exercise, I began practicing it with the usual enthusiasm that marked the beginning of all my undertakings. Before I had made scarcely any progress I decided that fencing would be of greater value to me, it being an exercise requiring precision of movements, thus making it of much value in the development of brain as well as of muscle. Just about the time my interest in fencing was keyed up to the highest pitch, the friend with whom I was practicing accidentally prodded me a little on the shoulder. This scared me into abandoning the exercise as it seemed fraught with danger.

Having read that deep and systematic breathing was considered by many as being the royal road to health for all whose stock of vitality is below par, I determined to give it a thorough trial. Deep-breathing was a pleasant exercise and easy to take; I kept it up for some time--perhaps ten days. Perhaps I might have continued it longer had I not about that time accepted the invitation of a friend to accompany him on an automobile tour which required several days. When I returned I was so much improved in health and spirits that I was looking at life from a new angle. I had forgotten all about the needs of exercise and deep breathing.

About this time there was a vacancy in our city schools, occasioned by the death of a popular teacher, and the School Board reposed sufficient confidence in me to ask me to take the place. I finished out the term and gave such satisfaction to pupils and patrons that the Board asked me to accept the position for the ensuing year at an increased salary. But I declined, on the ground that my health would not permit it. I was slipping back into my old ways! New symptoms were appearing, but the old ones, like old friends, seemed the firmest, and all made their return at varying intervals.

Among other things from which I now suffered were insomnia, melancholia, heart irregularity, and a train of mental symptoms and feelings which common words could not begin to describe. It would have required an a.s.sortment of the very strongest adjectives and adverbs to have told any one how I felt. For the first time, my stomach was now giving me a little trouble and my appet.i.te was off. I went to see a stomach specialist who looked me over and gravely informed me that I had _psychasthenia anorexia_. This was a new one on me. For all I knew about the term, it may have been obsolete swearing. I did not realize then that a little medical learning to a layman is a dangerous thing.

This doctor prescribed exercise, as had all the others whom I had ever consulted. As it was the consensus of medical opinion that I needed exercise, I thought I would take it scientifically and in the right manner; so I employed a qualified _ma.s.seur_ to give me ma.s.sage treatment.

I thought pa.s.sive exercise preferable to the active kind. This fellow, however, did not try to please me--he insisted on rubbing up when I wanted him to rub down, and _vice versa_--so I discharged him. Next I took up swimming and rowing, but one day I had a narrow escape from drowning, so that gave me a distaste for these things.

It seemed that I had about exhausted all the physical culture methods that might be considered genteel and in my cla.s.s. Perhaps it may be more literally correct to say that I had formed a nodding acquaintance with the most of them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Informed me I had psychasthenia anorexia.]

One day, as I was wondering what new thing I could annex, the postman handed me a letter. No psychology about this, for the postman comes every day and I get letters nearly every day. But this letter contained an advertis.e.m.e.nt of an outfit that was guaranteed to increase the stature.

Now I was tall enough, but I had a new vanity that I felt like humoring just then. When I occasionally appeared at social functions I wanted to be designated as "the tall, handsome bachelor." I thought that if I went through a course of exercises stretching my ligaments and tendons it would also conduce to health and strength. Growing tall ought to be healthy, all right, I thought. So I got the apparatus--a fiendish-looking thing, composed of ropes, straps, buckles, and pulleys--and I set it up in an unused shed. I had taken exercises with it a few days and liked it first-rate. One evening, about dusk, I went out to take my usual "turn"

and had just put on a head-gear suspended from a rope. This by a sort of hanging act was to develop and elongate the muscles of the neck. Just as I swung myself loose, two burly policemen hopped over the fence from the alley, cut the rope, and were dragging me off to the lock-up in spite of my pleadings and protests. I tried to a.s.sure them that I was not a lunatic and that I was not bent on suicide. "Shure, thot's what they all say!" was the cold comfort they gave me. As luck would have it, I at last discovered that I had in my pocket some of the directions that went with this new trouble-maker. I prevailed upon these big duffers to read it by their flashlights, and it had its convincing effect upon them. In disgust they released me, one saying to the other:--

"If I'd knowed thot, I'd let the dom'd fool hang a week!"

The next day I advertised the apparatus for sale, _cheap_.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NEURASTHENIC FALLS IN LOVE.

In writing this sketch it is the endeavor to carry up the different emotions and characteristics of my life in all their phases, as well as to chronicle the vagaries resulting directly from alleged ailments. To do this without seeming digressions and inconsistencies is not an easy task; therefore this word of explanation seemed apropos.

In the affairs of the heart the neurasthenic is, as some one has said of the heathen Chinee, "peculiar." As I have lived a life of celibacy so long, I feel free to speak frankly on this matter. After reading this chapter I am sure that no fair reader will picture me as her matinee idol; and I am quite sure that no good woman would undertake the shaky job of making me happy "forever and a day." She could never learn what I wanted for breakfast. I never know myself, which for the present moment is neither here nor there.

When very adolescent I was engrossed in a few exceedingly tame little love affairs which were of short duration and easy to get over. These little loves are like mumps and whooping-cough and other youthful affections: they seem necessary, but seldom prove serious. Aside from these, I had been proof against the tender pa.s.sion throughout all that period of my life when, according to the poet, "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." While I was getting on in years the love germ was only sleeping, and when it awakened all the lost time was soon made up. I had always admired the female s.e.x collectively and at a distance, but individually no one had ever entered my life until I met Genevieve. The plot thickens! While temporarily--I did everything temporarily--holding a position on one of our daily papers, I suddenly became infatuated with this young lady who occupied a type-writer's desk near my own. She was a charming girl of twenty and I will dive into the matter by saying that I was madly in love with her. She gave me every reason to believe that there were responsive chords touched in her heart, and that my affection was fully reciprocated. I became wilder every day! I could not be away from this fair creature who had changed the whole current of my being. I was supremely happy and looked at life through spectacles different from any I ever had before. Life had a roseate hue that it had never before possessed. Music was sweeter, flowers were prettier and pictures brighter than ever before. I seemed to be walking around in poetry and at the same time living up near heaven. While all this was true, I was at the same time miserable--a sort of ecstatic misery. It took away my appet.i.te, made sleep impossible and filled my life with wavering hopes and fears. The suspense was killing me! At the first opportunity I threw myself, metaphorically, at her feet, and unburdened myself about in this manner:--

"Darling, you are my love and my life and I cannot, and will not, live without you. What is your answer? Make up your mind before I do something desperate. Don't let me over-persuade you, loved one, but if you think I can make you happy, say the word. My life is in your hands. If you spurn me I shall pa.s.s out of your life forever. Dear one, what will you do?

Pray, speak quickly!"

She was listening attentively and I repeated the question that I thought would soon seal my fate: "_What will you do?_"

My charmer gave vent to a little chuckle and said: "_Suppose we mildew?_"

That was the proverbial "last straw" with me. Or to multiply similes, my love was blighted like a tomato plant in an unseasonable frost, and I vowed that since I was brought to my senses I would never make love to another woman.

A few months later I had forgotten this incident. I happened one day to be reading a book ent.i.tled _Ideals_ which gave much information on the subject of life-mating. As the reader may infer I was still a great reader. In fact I was a veritable walking-encyclopedia filled with a ma.s.s of information, most of which was of no earthly account. The book in question had a great deal to say concerning soul affinities, why marriages were successes or failures, and gave rules for selecting a sweetheart who would, of course, later bear a closer relations.h.i.+p. The writer thought somewhere there was a soul attuned to our own, and that sooner or later we would get in unison. This sounded nice and impressed me favorably, as most new things did. I recalled that Genevieve was short on the affinity part of the deal. With the aid of the book, I figured out that my ideal was a beautiful blonde with soulful eyes, into whose liquid depths I should some day feastingly gaze. I made up my mind that if ever, in an unguarded moment, I should again try my hand at love-making, I would temper it with science and the eternal fitness of things. I now knew how it should be done.

Soon after this I was for a short time on the road as a commercial traveler and had some opportunity to watch for my affinity. I at last was rewarded by finding her in the daughter of a customer who lived in an inland town. She, too, was a charming girl, and with me it was a case of love at first sight. I realized at once that the Genevieve affair was spurious and not the real thing. I thought how different was this case with Eleanor--for that was the name my affinity bore. I adored this queenly little maid with the golden hair, and resolved on my next visit to her town to ask her to be mine. I was combining business and heart matters in a way that enabled me to make Eleanor's little city quite frequently. Unfortunately, before I made a return visit I was bruised up a little in a railroad wreck, in consequence of which I went to a hospital for repairs. It was nothing serious, but just enough to incapacitate me for a few days, and I thought I would fare better in the hospital than at a hotel. The nurse who attended me was a pretty brunette and she captivated me. I would lie there and longingly watch for the re-appearance of her natty uniform and sweet smile. Yes, I was desperately in love with Josephine, for besides being fair to look upon, she could do something to add to my comfort. I forgot all about Eleanor and ideals; not because I was a trifler with the hearts of women, but simply because in this matter, as in everything, I did not know my own mind. I was very reluctant to leave the hospital and remained as long as I could. Before going, however, I made love overtures toward Josephine. That lady smiled, not unkindly, and then turned and picked up a magazine called _Nurses' Guide_. She pointed to a bit of colloquy which read as follows:--

_Man Patient_--"Will you not promise me (groans) that when I recover (more groans) you will fly with me?"

_Fair Nurse_--"Sure, I will; I have just promised a one-legged man who has a wife and three children to run away with him. I will promise you anything; _it's a part of the business_."

Once more I realized that I was simply living on the earth.

Whenever I found a young woman who combined good looks, real worth and a practical mind, she was usually engaged to some one else. Perhaps I was too hard to please. I would for a while admire brunettes and then suddenly develop a preference for blondes. I would for another short season think that tall girls were my choice, but in a little while my fancy would switch around to those who were rather small and pet.i.te. Sometimes I thought that only a woman who possessed musical and literary accomplishments would ever find favor with me. Then again I would think, should I ever marry, I would choose some little country la.s.s and train her up according to my ideas and ideals. So this has been my life-time att.i.tude toward the feminine half of the world. It is my weakness and not my fault. In consequence of which, am I to be despised and rejected of women?

But, womankind, you have nowhere a more ardent admirer and defender than you will find in yours truly!

CHAPTER VIII.

MORBID FEARS AND FANCIES.

It should be remembered that I am now a full-fledged neurasthenic, with all the rights and privileges that go with the job. Yes, Webster defines a job as being an undertaking. Neurasthenia is certainly an "undertaking,"

therefore it must be a job--a big one at that. It interferes with the holding of any more remunerative job and consumes most of one's time in trying to keep his health in a pa.s.sable condition. I have had positions of some importance handed to me, which I discharged with eminent satisfaction to all concerned until I got ready to go off at some new tangent. If I did not imagine myself in the actual embrace of some grave physical or mental disease, I feared that something would in the near future attack me; and that brings me to the main topic of this chapter--morbid fears.

These foolish, fanciful and often groundless fears are dignified by the name of "phobias." A man who is afraid of everything should not be dubbed a low-down coward--he is simply afflicted with "pantaphobia." It doesn't cost a bit more to be scientific and it carries with it more _eclat_.

Another one of these fears is agoraphobia--the fear of an open s.p.a.ce. A fellow who has it is afraid to cross an open lot or field, and if he does make the venture, he carries with him a big stick or some weapon of defense. This, like many other phobias, is explained by scientists as being of simian inheritance. Our grandparents who lived in trees a few thousand years ago had a much tougher struggle for existence than any of us have today. Tree-tops were their only places of safety. If one of them happened to fall out of a tree into an open s.p.a.ce on the ground where there was nothing to climb into, he was likely to be attacked by a lion or a tiger. This always filled the life of our little ancestor with intense fear and so affected his brain that the impress of it has been handed down and occasionally crops out in some of us. Our dreams of falling, we are told, are a vestige of the mental condition experienced by our monkey-foreparents when they made a misleap and fell to the ground.

There is also the fear of a confined area, the fear of a crowd, fear of loss of speech at an inopportune moment, fear of falling buildings, fear of being alone, fear of poison, fear of germs, fears _ad nauseam_. I have qualified in all of them and taken post-graduate courses.

Another one of these fears I shall speak of and in no spirit of levity. It is too pathetic for pleasantry or jest. It is the fear that you will in some thoughtless moment, when the occasion is most ill-timed, utter some vulgar or profane word. These ugly, repulsive words or thoughts will cling with the greatest tenacity and defy every effort to eradicate them. They are of a nature entirely foreign to one's disposition and character; for the neurasthenic, with all his eccentricities, is usually refined and exemplary. A minister of the Gospel whose life was of almost immaculate purity stated that the word "d.a.m.n" often tortured his life and caused him to fear that he would give it an untimely utterance. I have found that many persons are similarly afflicted, but are rather reluctant to let their fears be known.

Hydrophobia demands a few words. A few times in childhood I was scratched by a dog, in consequence of which I stood in mortal fear of hydrophobia.

It was a popular belief that the poison of rabies might lie latent in the system and not manifest itself until years after. This belief obtains with many people to-day. The "madstones" in the possession of many credulous people help to perpetuate the fear of this awful disease. As a matter of fact, the madstone is simply a porous rock which may adhere to a warm, moist surface and exert an absorbent action. Any poison introduced under the skin is disseminated through the system in less than two minutes. If the doctor ever gave you a hypodermic, your knowledge on this point is convincing. The folly then of applying something, days or weeks later, to absorb the poison of a mad-dog's bite from a localized spot is at once apparent. Any owner of one of these stones who hires it out should be prosecuted for getting money under false pretense, and then dealt with by the humane societies for engendering morbid and groundless fears.

Scientific men are yet divided on the question as to whether or not hydrophobia is a _bona fide_ disease, or whether it is only a functional disturbance in which the element of fear predominates. No hydrophobia germ has ever been isolated, and when the doctors these days can't find a germ to fit a disease, it looks as if there was something wrong. It has many times been demonstrated that persons of a susceptible nature can be scared to death. But I don't care how much a.s.surance I get from scientific sources, I can't get over the habit of being a little exclusive in regard to uncanny canines.

There is scarcely a disease or a symptom that I ever heard of that has not at some time preyed upon my mind lest I become a victim of it. These fears are hard to throw off or laugh out of existence when once they have become a part of your very being. In order to avert untoward conditions which I thought might overtake me, I have changed from one occupation to another about as often as the man in the moon modifies his physiognomy. In making these changes I have often found it about like dodging an automobile to get hit by a street car.

CHAPTER IX.

GERMS AND HOW HE AVOIDED THEM. APPENDICITIS.

Morbid fears have been briefly mentioned. It may now be in order for me to chronicle some of the hygienic measures that I have pursued with a view to averting diseases to which I thought I might succ.u.mb. In a former chapter I reported having subjected myself to many rigid conditions in the hope of ridding myself of infirmities which I then had. Now I am looking to the future with the idea that prevention is better than cure.

The germ theory gave me a great deal of worry. I learned a bit about it and some of the habits of the ubiquitous bacillus. In this matter the little learning was, as usual, a dangerous thing. Germs were constantly on my mind, if not in my brain. It seemed that they were ever lying in wait for me and there was no avenue of escape. Sometimes my scrupulous care in trying to ignore the microbe caused me to be the subject of unfavorable comment. Once, at communion service, I took pains to give the cup a thorough rubbing before putting it to my chaste lips. It had just pa.s.sed an unkempt and unwashed brother, and for my little act of circ.u.mspection I gained his ill-will. However, on the next occasion the cup came direct to me from the lips of a good-looking young woman and I remember that I did not take the usual precautions. This shows how inconsistent I was. I have since learned that some of the most virulent germs are to be found in the mouths of young ladies of the "Gibson-girl" type.