The greatest sufferers from this species of folly and ignorance are, and always have been, women. That curious form of neurasthenia which passes under the singularly inappropriate name of “hysteria” is largely the outcome of our modern ill-usage of the nervous system—the overstrain of one part and the starvation of another. And owing to a marvellous tendency of the human mind to add insult to injury, this very affliction, which should most command our sympathy and aid because it originates in cruel and idiotic injustice, is commonly regarded as fair game for our sneers and reproaches. More than that, the female sex, having been especially subjected to this kind of injustice, is often reproached with inferiority because of the liability of women to fall victims to the malady. It is as though we were to cut off a man’s arm, and then laugh at him for having only one. Even women themselves, galled by the contempt shown to their sex on account of its supposed “hysterical” tendencies, display a lamentable want of feeling when dealing with cases of nerve-trouble. They should bear in mind that if their attempts at putting themselves on an equality with men seem to destroy their womanly sympathies, they are not likely to attain their end.
But we are now realising that the sons of “hysterical” women are apt to suffer from neurasthenia, or even from epilepsy or insanity; so there is hope that their sufferings may at last receive adequate attention and consideration.
It is sometimes argued that in these enlightened days women are no longer compelled to endure the miseries of monotony that have so recently been their portion. This is, I think, a mistake. In large towns, doubtless, outlet is usually found for their activities, but numbers of women of the educated classes reside in the country and undergo a sad process of deterioration, owing to the prejudices entertained by those about them against their leaving home or seeking congenial employment. The complaints I have to listen to from ladies who have nothing to do are heart-rending. Tell them to cook their dinners, and you find that some foolish convention stands in the way; urge their entering some useful calling, and you are informed that their family will cut them if they do anything of the sort. Possibly the only occupation open to them is one for which training is necessary; and they have not been trained. And then, because an evil naturally generates its opposite, we find that when these women do succeed in finding employment, they rush to a pernicious extreme and overdo themselves.
When mischief is once set up, and an unhappy sufferer falls into the hands of unsympathetic doctors and nurses, her trials increase and multiply. If she be suffering from seeming inactivity, she is reproved, “roused,” and ordered to exert herself; the actual strain on the nerves of monotony, and the need in many cases of absolute repose, being wholly ignored. On the other hand, total inactivity is sometimes prescribed as a remedy for overwork, when restlessness is so great that enforced idleness maddens. The patience to gain the confidence of the sufferer, and the sympathy to understand her ills and their causes, are attributes of the higher order of mind that our sieves so often weed out.
The evils of overwork are too well known to need much comment. Those who have to earn their living cannot always avoid excessive fatigue, and they are specially liable to suffer from it if cursed by congenitally feeble organisations. But the strange thing is, that persons not obliged to work hard, and not rendered restless by previous enforced inactivity, should nevertheless deliberately make themselves ill. Nervous exhaustion, however, is extremely insidious. We can draw on our capital for a length of time without being made unpleasantly aware of growing weakness; and though self-destructive tendencies do not usually originate in a healthy, well-organised mind, people of good constitution do sometimes break down in consequence of the physiological ignorance in which they have been reared, or under the stress of a combination of exceptionally untoward circumstances.
Sometimes the true cause of the evil is to be found in an exaggerated personal ambition, showing none the less an ill-balanced mind; for, what truly sane person would sacrifice health to such chimeras as wealth and fame? All who have experienced wealth know perfectly well that it means simply an accumulation of bothers and a sense of responsibility; that we cannot, with our best endeavour, spend more than a certain amount upon ourselves, and that the possession of great wealth really means our acceptance of the arduous and thankless task of distributor to other people. The only remaining reward possible to us is the answer of a quiet conscience, and even that, we are aware, depends largely upon the liver, which organ luxury is apt to upset. It is chiefly from the wealthy that the ranks of the pessimists are recruited; and naturally so. For just as perfect health cannot long exist without self-forgetfulness, so all genuine happiness is to be found in working for a worthy object. Happiness of this kind and health of the nervous system go hand in hand;—at least, I have never found a prolonged divorce between the two possible.
As to the other chimera, fame, those who trouble about it must surely have a twist in their brains somewhere. The thing is a mere delusion of our own. Let us consider how far our greatest English writer, William Shakespeare, is known to the world. Of the vast populations of Africa, Arabia, India, China, Japan, and Polynesia, to say nothing of the inhabitants of Northern Asia, the native races of Australia and the Americas, and the peasantry of the Continent, few have so much as heard his name. And out of the small minority who have heard of it, how many have read a line of him? Even to the mass of our own population he is little known. Yet he lived but a couple of centuries ago and wrote as few men have written.
The earliest historical record takes us back only four thousand years or so—about a hundred generations—a mere flash of time compared to the ages during which our planet must have endured; and of all who lived before this brief period we know absolutely nothing.
For what, then, are we sacrificing our health, strength, and happiness?