Confessions of a Neurasthenic Part 4

"You have what is known to psychologists as 'creative imagination,' but you paint your pictures in a plausible manner. You are great on synonyms: seldom use a word of any length more than once in the same ma.n.u.script; and last, but not least, your diction is so clear and concise that it seems to the reader that you are talking to him."

This swelled me up with conceit and I thought if these words be true, why should I bury my talents in a little magazine in exchange for a paltry twenty-five dollars per thousand words? I would write a play and do something worth while. Just as I had the skeleton of the play well formed and a good start made on it, I came into the possession of a few thousand dollars by the death of an uncle in California. I at once invested the money in a farm--the most sensible thing I ever did. Now I thought that I would move to the country and live the life of a retired country gentleman. The seclusion of rural life would better enable me to put vim and inspiration into my literary efforts. But I found that the farm was too lonesome, with only hired help about me, so I secured a tenant and hied back to my city quarters.

These are only a few of my undertakings. Everything was "for a short time." This phrase occurs monotonously often, a fact of which I am not unaware, but I don't know how to obviate it.

While most of my ventures have been failures, as the world reckons failure, yet they have all been a source of satisfaction to me. Some day I feel that I shall find a life-work that will be to my liking and have a salutary effect upon me mentally and physically.

CHAPTER XII.

TRIES A NEW BUSINESS; ALSO TRAVELS SOME FOR HIS HEALTH.

As the reader may have already surmised, the play mentioned in the preceding chapter was never finished. No; after I was once more domiciled in my city home, I began to think that if I really was a literary genius I ought to commercialize my ideas right, instead of using them in fiction or drama simply to tickle the fancy of people who would forget it all in a moment's time. The idea of teaching things by mail occurred to me as being a field of great possibilities.

While it is a difficult matter to give tangible lessons by correspondence methods on some subjects--swimming, for example--yet on nearly everything there may be presented a working knowledge which the student can enlarge upon for himself. I employed some auburn-haired typewriters and began advertising to teach several different subjects by mail courses. Among these were journalism, poultry-raising, bee-culture, market-gardening, surveying, engineering, architecture, and several different things. We gave our graduates a nice diploma with some blue ribbon and cheap tinsel on it. These diplomas cost about twenty cents apiece to get them up, which seemed like a reckless waste of money, but it helped to advertise the business. Business came and we hadn't much to do except to deposit the money and, incidentally, send out the "stock letters," which the girls always jokingly called the "lessons."

One day one of the typewriters called my attention to the fact that for originality I had been outdone by a fellow at Peoria, Illinois, who advertised in the leading magazines to teach ventriloquism by mail. This was certainly an innovation in the way of mail instruction. I thought a little while about something entirely new that I could introduce. I soon had it! I got up a correspondence course in courting for the purpose of straightening out the crooked course of true love. I argued that nearly everything else had been simplified save courting, which went on in the old laborious manner with lovers' quarrels, heartaches, and ofttimes life-time estrangements. The course was a success and many wrote for "individual" instruction.

Things were going well and I had a lucrative business. I had been so busy for several months that all my symptoms had sunk into desuetude. I had almost forgotten that I was an invalid and that I should take care of my precious health, what little I had left, when the thought occurred to me, as it had several years before, that I was working too hard. Then, too, I became a little conscience-stricken. My conscience had never before troubled me, probably from the fact that I had never worked it overtime. I began to think that in these correspondence courses I might not be giving my patrons value received for their money. A pretty record for me to leave behind me, I thought. So as I had a competency anyway, I paid off my helpers and went out of business.

As I now thought I was again on the very edge of a nervous breakdown, I concluded to travel for my health. Where to go was the next question! A medical friend suggested a sea-voyage, but advised me to first take a sail for a day or so on Lake Michigan. I did so and became so seasick that death would have been joyously welcomed. I did not take the proposed voyage, as I had had enough.

But the germ that prompted me to travel for my health had a firm grip on me. Colorado was my first objective point, and on the first day of my arrival there I went to the top of one of their snow-capped mountains. I had not taken into account the effects of alt.i.tude upon a person not accustomed to it, and in consequence of my sudden ascent I had a slight expectoration of blood. This seemed to be cause for genuine alarm, and I now realized that I was to be a victim of "the great white plague,"

vulgarly known as consumption. Consumptives were as thick as English sparrows in Colorado and I saw ample evidences of the disease in all its horrible details. It seemed that there was a sort of caste among the "lungers," depending mainly upon their amount of ready cash. Some had plain "consumption," while others had only "tuberculosis." Many had "lung trouble," "catarrh," "bronchitis," and--"neurasthenia."

The patients in the sanitariums were graded. The most advanced cases were called the "B. L. B's."--"The Busted Lung Brigade." It seems that there is no condition too grim for joke and jest. On all sides there were coughing and expectorating and suffering and dying, sufficient to dismay the stoutest heart--and I a victim myself, I thought.

I heard that the torrid southwest was the ideal climate for tuberculosis and thither I went. I visited a few places in this hot southwestern country where it is alleged that consumptives in all stages soon recover and grow fat. I soon learned that these alluring reports should be taken with the usual quant.i.ty of saline matter. This boosting of climate for invalids, I found, was mainly the work of land sharks, railroads, hotel and sanitarium people, and a few medical men who were crafty or misguided.

This climate may be ideal in being germ-free, but where it is so hot and dry that even germs can't eke out an existence, it is also a trifle trying on the tender-foot consumptive. I found that the bad water and sand-storms in many localities, coupled with his homesickness, more than off-set all the good results the climate could otherwise bring to the sufferer.

In nearly every room I occupied while in this Mecca for consumptives, the place had been rendered vacant by my predecessor having moved out--in a box. I did not stay in one locality very long, but visited a number of places that were exploited as being the land of promise for all afflicted with this agonizing disease. Everywhere I went I saw hundreds of victims being shorn of their money and deriving meager, if any, benefits. The native consumptives went elsewhere in search of health, it being another case of "green hills _far away_." Many went so far as the State of Maine.

Every State in the Union has at some time been lauded as the favored spot for the cure of consumption, but, after all, it seems as mythical as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Some climates may be better than others for those ill with this disease, but if you are a poor, homesick sufferer--a stranger in a strange land--I doubt whether the best climate on earth can vie with the comforts of home, surrounded by those nearest and dearest to you, and whose kindly administrations are not to be regarded as a case of "love's labor lost."

I returned home "much improved in health." Don't think I've had a tuberculous symptom since.

CHAPTER XIII.

TRIES A RETIRED LIFE; IS ALSO AN INVESTIGATOR OF NEW THOUGHT, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION, ETC.

Having now decided upon a retired life in earnest, I had nothing to do but to look after my health and enjoy myself as best I could. I would settle down and have a good time after a genteel fashion and, as the poet says: "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." I would cultivate the little niceties and amenities that go to embellish and round out one's life and character.

I would add a few touches to enhance my personal charms. I would manicure my nails; iron out my "crow feet"; bleach out my freckles; keep my hair softened up with hirsute remedies, and my mustache waxed out at the proper angle. Whenever I appeared in society I did not mean to take a back seat or be a wall-flower, realizing that bachelors of my age and standing were very popular in a social way. However, I did not intend to get entangled in the meshes of love again, remembering the Genevieve-Eleanor-Josephine affairs. No wedding bells for me!

Yes, I would take life easy and I was always thinking, "next week I shall go to work enjoying myself." But time slipped along and somehow I could not get started in on the road to happiness. As I had nothing else to do I could not understand why I should not be supremely happy. But I found it hard work doing nothing; I could not enjoy myself at it.

Again I began to grow introspective and melancholy, and soon had a return of all my symptoms of old. They all came trooping in to pay me a visit for the sake of auld lang syne. How should I treat them? To get rid of unwelcome visitors often requires study and tact. I had tried about all the "health and hygiene" rules that had ever been invented. But while this was true, I take a certain degree of pride in saying that among all the absurd measures to which I have resorted, I never made a practice of taking dopes and cure-alls. There are depths to which a self-respecting neurasthenic will not stoop. One of these is taking patent medicines and nostrums. Whenever an individual has descended so low that he imbibes these things, he has gotten out of our cla.s.s and has become a common, every-day fiend. No, the neurasthenic is no commonplace fellow. He may undergo a useless operation for appendicitis, but he will not swill down dirty dopes. His office is high-toned and esthetic. Perhaps that is the main reason why he is so often reluctant to give it up and be cured. He may display morbid fears and fancies that border on lunacy, and he may do some freakish and atrocious things, but for all that he is usually a man of good points and perhaps superior attainments. Our cult is respectable and made up of gentlemen who seldom defile their mouths or stomachs with tobacco, cigarettes, impure words or patent medicine.

But I could not refrain from doing something for my health's sake. After taking a little mental survey of the past, I saw at once that all of nature's methods had, at one time and another, been called into my service. It seemed to be an unconscious rule of action on my part never to do the same thing twice if it could be avoided. Now I resolved to invade the realm of the speculative and unseen by dipping into New Thought. The subject seemed to be fascinating, although one in which there was still something to be learned. The psychic research people claimed to have telepathy and thought transference about on a paying basis. I thought that if I could get some strong "health waves" permeating my system it would do me good. The thing to do was to get my psychic machinery attuned to that of some good healthy, clean-minded individuals who were skilled in this line of business. I attended the meetings of a Theosophy Mutual Admiration Society and tried to get some of their wholesome thoughts worked into my system. It seemed to act nicely and the results were gratifying, but I was of the opinion that perhaps Christian Science was better adapted to my needs. It would be a stunner to be able to address a little speech about like this to myself:--

"The joke is on you, old chap; you don't feel any of those symptoms you have complained of all these years. Why? Well, because you haven't anybody and haven't anything to feel with. Mind is all there is to you and--and--and I'm afraid there is not enough of it to give you much trouble."

I liked Christian Science pretty well, although the name seemed to me somewhat of a misnomer. The main part of it consisted in trying to make me believe that nothing is or ever was. Just a great big, overgrown imagination. However, I cannot refrain from perpetrating that old gag about their taking real money for what they did for me.

I soon dropped science and was treated by hypnotic suggestion. I would seat myself in an easy-chair midst seductive surroundings and the great metaphysician would then say: "Put your objective senses in abeyance with complete mental oblivion, and enter a state of profound pa.s.sivity." This interpreted into plain United States would mean: "Forget your troubles and go to sleep." When I was in a suggestible mood the doctor would address a little speech to what he called my subconscious mind, after which he sent me on my way rejoicing. About this time a friend advised me to consult a vibrationist, which I did.

This man told me that the trouble in my case was in my polarization; not enough positive for the negative elements. However, he a.s.sured me that I could be cured by sleeping with my head to the northwest and wearing his insulated soles inside my shoes. I postponed taking this treatment until after I had heard from an astrologist to whom I had written. The latter agreed to tell me all I cared to know about myself and my ailments, which he would deduce from the date of my birth. His graphic description of the diseases to which I was liable gave me a favorable impression of his astute wisdom. So I wrote to about a dozen other astrologists for horoscopes of my life in order to see whether all their findings were the same. Some of them tallied almost verbatim with the first one received, while others were diametrically opposite. From this I inferred that these star-gazers gained their information in at least two ways: from their imaginations and from a book.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CULTIVATION OF A FEW VICES AND THE CONSEQUENCES.

When I found that I couldn't possibly do nothing--I do not mean this in the ungrammatical sense in which it is so often used--I thought I would be obliged to take up some new calling or diversion. Time hung heavily on my hands and I thought too much about myself, as usual. A mental healer had told me that I was too imaginative and thought of too many different things. He said: "A part of the time try to think of absolutely nothing; think of yourself." I did not know whether he meant this literally or as a bit of sarcasm. Anyway, I realized that it was best for me to keep the ego in subjection so far as possible. But to what new things could I now turn in order to divert my mind from myself and my ailments?

I had always led a life very exemplary and free from even the petty vices usually indulged in by the best of men. I had never engaged in the little pleasantries and frivolities that might be of questioned propriety. I would often remark that I had never had a cigar between my teeth, never had uttered a cuss word, never kissed a girl, and so on. For this my friends would sometimes twit me and say: "Old boy, you don't know what you've missed!" Another quotation rung in my ears was: "Be good and you'll be happy, but you'll miss a lot of fun!" So I thought I would pursue a different course for a while. It was an awful thing to do, but I was set upon putting it to the test: I would cultivate a few delicate vices.

One day, when a very good friend was visiting me, I thought I would begin on my course of depravity. The first lesson would be in swearing. When an opportunity presented itself, I uttered a word that I thought was strong enough for an amateur to begin on. It stuck in my throat and nearly choked me. My friend laughed and looked both amused and ashamed. Reader, if you have lived to maturity and never indulged in profanity, you can't imagine how awkward it will be for you to turn out your first piece of swearing.

You can't do it justice. With no disposition to want to sermonize on the matter I would say, don't begin. I have seen several women--or rather females--who could beat me swearing all hollow.

Next, I thought I'd try smoking. In theory only I knew some of the seductive effects of My Lady Nicotine. I would experience the reality. I purchased a box of cigars, and in making my selection I depended mainly upon the label on the box, as women do when they buy birthday cigars for their husbands. When I got in seclusion I took out one and smoked about an inch of it. Pretty soon things began going round and an eruption occurred inside of me. Words are inadequate to describe how sick I became, so I shall not make the attempt. It is needless to state that I at once abandoned the idea of ever being able to extract any satisfaction from tobacco fumes.

No more self-contamination for me, I thought. But soon after these events another friend prevailed upon me to sample with him a most excellent brand of champagne. The blood mounts to my cheeks in "maidenly" shame as I now chronicle the occurrence. This friend said: "You don't know what a feeling of exhilaration and well-being a little good champagne will give you. Try it once; don't a.s.sociate it with common alcoholic stimulants." Those last words, well-meant but, to me, misleading, caused me to make a spectacle of myself for a short period of time. While I partook of this fizzing beverage lightly, the reader will understand how readily the stuff affected my susceptible system and how quickly it went to my head. And then it seemed to have staying qualities. The next morning I was crazier than ever, but toward evening I crawled out on the lawn in a secluded corner. The fresh air did me good, but for several hours I had to hold on to the gra.s.s _to keep from dropping off the earth_.

Here I halted on my road to ruin. I resolved that between remaining a neurasthenic who enjoyed the respect and esteem of a large circle of friends, and becoming a depraved wretch, I would choose the former. I had no ambition to become a sport or a rounder, but would continue the even tenor of my former way and stick to those things in which I could indulge without moral or mental reservations.

Now, whenever I see a bibulous man, it brings to my mind visions of that one experience and how I was compelled to hold on for dear life to keep from falling into s.p.a.ce.

CHAPTER XV.

CONSIDERS POLITICS AND RELIGION. CONSULTS OSTEOPATHIC AND HOMEOPATHIC DOCTORS.

By this time I was beginning to get tolerably well acquainted with myself.

The reader may perhaps think--if he cares enough to think--that I did not enjoy life; but I did in my evanescent, changeful way. I was always wavering between optimism and pessimism. Some days one of these qualities would predominate and some days the other would be in evidence. I never knew one day what the next would bring forth. I came to understand myself so well that I never started anything with the determination to carry it to a finish.

I thought about entering politics, but did not know with what party to cast my affiliations. The Democrats and the Republicans both claimed to favor a judicious revision of the tariff as well as a yearning to bridle the trusts and money power. So did the Populists. Each of them had plenty of plans for solving the vexed and ever-present problem of capital and labor. Each party espoused the cause of the ma.s.ses who toil, and each likewise favored laws which would enable one to get the highest price if he had labor or products to sell; or if one happened to be in the market as a buyer he would, of course, get these things cheap. Their rules seemed to effect a compromise by working both ways. Out of all these conflicting and chaotic ideas I knew that I would be unable to decide upon any set of issues and stay with them a fortnight. So, as I view the matter now, I think I displayed unusual strength of character in staying out of politics.