inst. I throw up impregnable moral
intrenchments between Worry and You. Find a door banging in _this_
house, if you can! Catch a servant in _this_ house rattling the
tea-things when he takes away the tray! Discover barking dogs, crowing
cocks, hammering workmen, screeching children _here_--and I engage to
close My Sanitarium to-morrow! Are these nuisances laughing matters to
nervous people? Ask them! Can they escape these nuisances at home? Ask
them! Will ten minutes' irritation from a barking dog or a screeching
child undo every atom of good done to a nervous sufferer by a month's
medical treatment? There isn't a competent doctor in England who will
venture to deny it! On those plain grounds my System is based. I assert
the medical treatment of nervous suffering to be entirely subsidiary
to the moral treatment of it. That moral treatment of it you find here.
That moral treatment, sedulously pursued throughout the day, follows
the sufferer into his room at night; and soothes, helps and cures him,
without his own knowledge--you shall see how."

The doctor paused to take breath and looked, for the first time since
the visitors had entered the house, at Miss Gwilt. For the first time,
on her side, she stepped forward among the audience, and looked at him
in return. After a momentary obstruction in the shape of a cough, the
doctor went on.

"Say, ladies and gentlemen," he proceeded, "that my patient has just
come in. His mind is one mass of nervous fancies and caprices, which
his friends (with the best possible intentions) have been ignorantly
irritating at home. They have been afraid of him, for instance, at
night. They have forced him to have somebody to sleep in the room with
him, or they have forbidden him, in case of accidents, to lock his door.
He comes to me the first night, and says: 'Mind, I won't have anybody
in my room!'--'Certainly not!'--'I insist on locking my door.'--'By all
means!' In he goes, and locks his door; and there he is, soothed and
quieted, predisposed to confidence, predisposed to sleep, by having his
own way. 'This is all very well,' you may say; 'but suppose something
happens, suppose he has a fit in the night, what then?' You shall see!
Hallo, my young friend!" cried the doctor, suddenly addressing the
sleepy little boy. "Let's have a game. You shall be the poor sick
man, and I'll be the good doctor. Go into that room and lock the door.
There's a brave boy! Have you locked it? Very good! Do yo