s 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 petite. 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 lass and train her
up according to my ideas and ideals. So this has been my life-time
attitude 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 passable 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 space. 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 o