vacuity of their lives, a prey to worry because
they have nothing else to do. If I were to put down and faithfully
report the conversations I have with such people; the fool worries
they are really distressed with; the labor, time and energy they spend
on following chimeras, will o' the wisps, mirages that beckon to them
and promise a little mental occupation,--and over which they cannot
help but worry, one could scarcely believe it.

As Dr. Walton forcefully says in his admirable booklet:

The present, then, is the age, and our contemporaries are the
people, that bring into prominence the little worries, that
cause the tempest in the teapot, that bring about the worship
of the intangible, and the magnification of the unessential.
If we had lived in another epoch we might have dreamt of the
eternal happiness of saving our neck, but in this one we fret
because our collar does not fit it, and because the button
that holds the collar has rolled under the bureau.[A]

[Footnote A: _Calm Yourself_. By George Lincoln Walton, M.D.,
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, Mass.]

I am not so foolish as to imagine for one moment that I can correct
the worrying tendency of the age, but I do want to be free from worry
myself, to show others that it is unnecessary and needless, and also,
that it is possible to live a life free from its demoralizing and
altogether injurious influences.

CHAPTER III

NERVOUS PROSTRATION AND WORRY.

Nervous prostration is generally understood to mean weakness of the
nerves. It invariably comes to those who have extra strong nerves,
but who do not know how to use them properly, as well as those whose
nervous system is naturally weak and easily disorganized. Nervous
prostration is a disease of overwork, mainly mental overwork, and in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, comes from worry. Worry is
the most senseless and insane form of mental work. It is as if a
bicycle-rider were so riding against time that, the moment after he
got off his machine to sit down to a meal he sprang up again, and
while eating were to work his arms and legs as if he were riding.
It is the slave-driver that stands over the slave and compels him to
continue his work, even though he is so exhausted that hands, arms and
legs cease to obey, and he falls asleep at his task.

The folly, as well as the pain and distress of this cruel
slave-driving is that we hold the whip over ourselves, have