“Everything considered,” says Renan, “there are few situations in the vast field of existence where the balance of debt and credit does not leave a little surplus of happiness.”
We have crossed the years. We are here. We have escaped what perils! We have landed with what residue of wisdom and of hope!
SUBCONSCIOUS FEARS
A young man writes me that he is afraid of thunderstorms, and asks if there is no way for him to overcome this weakness. “I am normal in every other respect,” he adds, “but notwithstanding my endeavors to fight off this nervousness I find it to be of no avail; it appears to be a sort of subconscious fear.”
This is not a matter of ridicule, but a sample of very real and acute suffering to which many persons are subject by fear-panics due to various causes.
Many women scream with terror at the sight of a mouse. There is no use telling them that mice will not hurt them. So doing, you are addressing their reason, while the trouble lies not in their intelligence—it is a nervous disease. They scare just as a horse shies at a newspaper flapping in the wind.
Cæsar Augustus was almost convulsed at the sound of thunder.
Tycho Brahe changed color and his legs shook under him on meeting a rabbit.
Dr. Samuel Johnson would never enter a room left foot first.
Talleyrand trembled at the mention of the word—death.