nny little
smile came through the tears.

"There is one nervously worn-out woman gone to comfort and lift up
another nervously worn-out woman--if that is not the blind leading the
blind then I don't know. I wonder how long it will be before mamma,
too, is in the ditch?"

This same story could be reversed with the mother in the daughter's
place, and the daughter in the mother's. And, indeed, we see slight
illustrations of it, in one way or the other, in many families and
among many friends.

This, then, is the first answer to any woman's question, "Why am I so
nervous?" Because you do not use common sense in taking exercise, fresh
air, nourishment, and rest.

Nature tends toward health. Your whole physical organism tends toward
health. If you once find yourself out and begin to be sensible you will
find a great, vigorous power carrying you along, and you will be
surprised to see how fast you gain. It may be some time before Nature
gets her own way with you entirely, because when one has been off the
track for long it must take time to readjust; but when we begin to go
with the laws of health, instead of against them, we get into a healthy
current and gain faster than would have seemed possible when we were
outside of it, habitually trying to oppose the stream.

The second reason why women are nervous is that they do not govern
their emotions. Very often it is the strain of unpleasant emotions that
keeps women nervous, and when we come really to understand we find that
the strain is there because the woman does not get her own way. She has
not money enough.

She has to live with some one she dislikes. She feels that people do
not like her and are neglectful of her. She believes that she has too
much work to do. She wishes that she had more beauty in her life.

Sometimes a woman is entirely conscious of when or why she fails to get
her own way; then she knows what she is fretting about, and she may
even know that the fretting is a strain that keeps her tired and
nervously irritated. Sometimes a woman is entirely unconscious of what
it is that is keeping her in a chronic state of nervous irritability. I
have seen a woman express herself as entirely resigned to the very
circumstance or person that she was unconsciously resisting so fiercely
that her resistance kept her ill half of the time. In such cases the
strain is double. First, there is the strain of the person or
circumstance chronically resisted and secondly,