It is all very well to laugh at such fears, but they are not
natural fears at all, they just indicate a low vitality; they are
the symptoms and not the causes of a disease. It is the frame of
mind of the sluggard in the Bible who says, "There is a lion in the
way." Younger people are apt to be irritated by what seems a wilful
creating of apprehensions. They ought rather to be patient and
reassuring, and compassionate to the weakness of nerve for which it
stands.
With such fears as these may be classed all the unreal but none the
less distressing fears about health which beset people all their
lives, in some cases; it is extremely annoying to healthy people to
find a man reduced to depression and silence at the possibility of
taking cold, or at the fear of having eaten something unwholesome.
I remember an elderly gentleman who had lived a vigorous and
unselfish life, and was indeed a man of force and character, whose
activity was entirely suspended in later years by his fear of
catching cold or of over-tiring himself. He was a country
clergyman, and used to spend the whole of Sunday between his
services, in solitary seclusion, "resting," and retire to bed the
moment the evening service was over; moreover his dread of taking
cold was such that he invariably wore a hat in the winter months to
go from the drawing-room to the dining-room for dinner, even if
there were guests in his house.
Pages:
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92