CONFESSIONS OF A NEURASTHENIC
WEBMASTER'S NOTE: This work is presented for historical interest and subject background only. Many of the conclusions, attitudes, and treatments discussed here are those of an "expert" of another era, many of which have been overturned by science or are not acceptable in today's world.
CHAPTER IV.
HIS PURSUIT OF AN EDUCATION.
When I arrived at an age when my character should have been in some measure “moulded,” I was, like most persons of a peculiar nervous temperament, very vacillating and changeful. No one knew how to size me up; in fact, I didn’t know myself. I was now constantly developing new, short-lived ambitions. Occasionally I became industrious for short periods of time. Indulgent and now prosperous parents provided a way for me to pursue my little ambitions. I had secured the rudimentary part of an education and I determined to build upon it. I was going to reach the topmost rung.
It was my ambition, for a short time, to obtain a classical education and become one of the literati; but I soon became weary of one line of study, and when a thing got to be too irksome I passed it by for something else. I could not be occupied with any study long unless I seemed to be progressing in it with marvelous speed. This rapid-transit progress[Pg 21] was, of course, very unusual. I had read that quasi-science, phrenology, and came to the conclusion that I could not stick to any one thing because my bump of “continuity” was poorly developed.
I read that a very learned man used to admire Blackstone; so I dropped everything and began perusing Blackstone’s Commentaries. Soon after I chanced to hear that Oliver Ellsworth gained the greater part of his information from conversation, and I determined upon this method for a while. I soon grew tired of it, however, and next took up[Pg 22] general history and literature. While taking my collegiate course, I pursued a number of different studies, but the pursuit as well as the possession amounted to very little. I had taken up Greek and Latin and had begun to manifest some interest in these studies, when a friend, in whom I had some confidence, advised me against wasting my time on obsolete words. He said: “Learn English first, young man. I’ll wager there are plenty of good Anglo-Saxon words that you can’t pronounce or define. For example, tell me what ‘y-c-l-e-p-t’ spells and what it means.”
Thus being picked up on a trifling, useless English word, I decided to give up the study of dead languages and confine myself to my mother-tongue. Rhetoric and lexicography were hobbies with me for a time, but before a great while I thought I needed “mental drill”; so I turned my attention to mathematics. The subject became dry and uninteresting in the usual length of time; besides, I began seriously to question mathematics as being in the utilitarian class of studies. Certainly very little of it was necessary as a business qualification. I recalled the fact that one[Pg 23] of the best business men, in a mediocre station of life, whom I had ever known, could not write his own name and his wife had to count his money for him. So I threw away my Euclid and tried something else; but I would voluntarily tire of each study in a little while, or drop it at the counter-suggestion of some friend. Thus I changed from one course to another as a weather-cock is veered by the ever-changing wind to every point of the compass.
Then I took up the fad of building air-castles. It is hard to laugh down this species of architecture—the erection of atmospheric mansions. Every one has it, in a way, but with me it had broken out in a very virulent form. It makes one feel mean, indeed, to arouse from one of these Elysian escapades only to find his feet on the commonest sort of clay. Day-dreaming never produces the kind of dream that comes true, and mental speculating is about as useless as indulging in Western mining stock. Well-laid plans are all right, but ideals that you can’t even hope to live up to have no place in life’s calendar. Dabbling with the unattainable is calculated[Pg 24] to sour us on the world and turn the milk of human kindness into buttermilk. It may be likened to the predicament in which old Tantalus was placed in the lake, where the water receded when he attempted to drink it, and delicious fruits always just eluded his grasp.
Next I got hold of the delusion that I was studying and working too hard. Goodness knows that what little I did was as desultory and haphazard as it could well be, but nevertheless I stood in great fear of a dissolution of my gray matter. Once it seemed to me that my brain was loose in my cranium and I imagined I could hear it rattling around. I went at midnight to consult a physician in regard to this phenomenal condition. After I had described my symptoms, the doctor smiled rather more expansively than was to my liking and said:—
“You may have a little post-nasal catarrh, but I think it is only a neurosis.”
I thought to myself that if it was “only” a neurosis it was one with great possibilities. The fact that collapses are frequent among brain-workers was not easily dismissed from[Pg 25] my mind. I feared insanity and began to picture how I would disport myself in a madhouse. It seemed that I could not carry out the medical advice to take vigorous exercise, as it gave me palpitation and made me fear that my heart would go out of business.
I concluded that the best thing I could do was to take up some fad to relieve my overworked (?) brain and radiate some of my pent-up energy. I had read of the fads of great men, but I could not decide after which one to pattern. Nero was a great fiddler and went up and down Greece, challenging all the crack violinists to a contest; the king of Macedonia spent his time in making lanterns; Hercalatius, king of Parthia, was an expert mole-catcher and spent much of his time in that business; Biantes of Lydia was the best hand in the country at filing needles; Theophylact—whom nobody but a bookworm ever heard of—bred fine horses and fed them the richest dates, grapes and figs steeped in wines; an ex-president of modern times was fond of fishing and spent much time in piscatorial pursuits. None of these struck me just right, so I thought I would be obliged to make[Pg 26] a selection of my own. First I tried amateur photography, but this soon grew monotonous and I gave it up. Next I got a cornet, but I soon found that it required more wind than I could conveniently spare. I then tried homing pigeons, but before I had scarcely given the little aerial messengers a fair test I had thought of a dozen other things that seemed preferable. Everything proved alike tiresome and tedious. However, I found that in chasing diversions I had forgotten all about my imagined infirmities. So perhaps, after all, the end accomplished justified the means employed to secure it.
