there were no book that helpfully dealt
with some of the questions which a weak or nervous woman, or a woman who
has been these, would wish to have answered. I knew of none, nor can I
flatter myself that the parts of this present little volume, in which I
have sought to aid this class of patients, are fully adequate to the
purpose.

I was tempted when I wrote these essays to call them lay sermons, so
serious did some of their subjects seem to me. They touch, indeed, on
matters involving certain of the most difficult problems in human life,
and involve so much that goes to mar or make character, that no man
could too gravely approach such a task. Not all, however, of these
chapters are of this nature, and I have, therefore, contented myself
with a title which does not so clearly suggest the preacher.

It would be scarcely correct to state that their substance or advice was
personally addressed to those still actually nervous. To them a word or
two of sustaining approval, a smiling remonstrance, or a few phrases of
definite explanation, are all that the wise and patient doctor should
then wish to use. Constant inquiries and a too great appearance of what
must be at times merely acted interest, are harmful.

When I was a small boy, my father watched me one day hoeing in my little
garden. In reply to a question, I said I was digging up my potatoes to
see if they were growing. He laughed, and returned, "When you are a man,
you will find it unwise to dig up your potatoes every day to see if they
are growing." Nor has the moral of his remark been lost on me. It is as
useless to be constantly digging up a person's symptoms to see if they
are better, and still greater folly to preach long sermons of advice to
such as are under the despotism of ungoverned emotion, or whirled on the
wayward currents of hysteria. To read the riot act to a mob of emotions
is valueless, and he who is wise will choose a more wholesome hour for
his exhortations. Before and after are the preacher's hopeful occasions,
not the moment when excitement is at its highest, and the self-control
we seek to get help from at its lowest ebb.

There are, as I have said, two periods when such an effort is wise,--the
days of health, or of the small beginnings of nervousness, and of the
uncontrol which is born of it, and the time when, after months or years
of sickness, you have given back to the patient physical vigor, and with
it a growing capacity to cultivate an