ou can lengthen your days if you do not brood on fatal
things--fatal to you; if you do not worry yourself into the grave."

I knew that something of this was platitude, and that counsel to such
a man must be of a more possible cast, if it is to be followed. I was
aware also that, in nine cases out of ten, worry is not a voluntary or
constitutional thing, but springs from some extraneous cause.

He smiled faintly, raised his head a little higher, and said:
"Yes, that's just it, I suppose; but then we do not order our own
constitutions; and I believe, Doctor, that you must kill a nerve before
it ceases to hurt. One doesn't choose to worry, I think, any more than
one chooses to lay bare a nerve." And then his eyes dropped, as if he
thought he had already said too much.

Again I studied him, repeating my definitions in my mind. He was not a
drunkard; he might have had no vice, so free was his face from any sign
of dissipation or indulgence; but there was suffering, possibly the
marks of some endured shame. The suffering and shadows showed the more
because his features were refined enough for a woman. And altogether it
struck me that he was possessed by some one idea, which gave his looks a
kind of sorrowful eloquence, such as one sees on occasion in the face of
a great actor like Salvini, on the forehead of a devout Buddhist, or in
the eyes of a Jesuit missionary who martyrs himself in the wilds.

I felt at once for the man a sympathy, a brotherliness, the causes of
which I should be at a loss to trace. Most people have this experience
at one time or another in their lives. It is not a matter of sex; it may
be between an old man and a little child, a great man and a labourer, a
schoolgirl and an old native woman. There is in such companionships less
self-interest than in any other. As I have said, I thought that this man
had a trouble, and I wished to know it; not from curiosity,--though my
mind had a selfish, inquiring strain,--but because I hoped I might
be able to help him in some way. I put my hand on his shoulder, and
replied: "You will never be better unless you get rid of your worry."

He drew in a sharp breath, and said: "I know that. I am afraid I shall
never be better."

There was a silence in which we looked at each other steadily, and then
he added, with an intense but quiet misery: "Never--never!"

At that he moved his hand across his forehead wearily, rose, and turned
toward the door. He swayed as he did