In another part of this book I have written the story of the aged philosopher, who, on being asked to name the worst troubles he had in life, answered, "I am quite sure my greatest worries, and my worst troubles were those that never happened." This reply is well worth thinking about; it contains matter for serious reflection, and what makes it so suggestive and valuable is that it can be proved true by the experience of our own lives.
Nosophobia means dread of disease. It may astonish many to know that such a condition is regarded as a disease, and that it has been given a name. Instead, however, of it being a rare disease, or an unusual condition, we find it is one of the commonest diseases, and one of the most easily acquired conditions. In fact, it is so easily acquired nowadays that we have to be constantly on guard against it. Though we may not be its victim, we have all felt its influence at some time, and even one experience of it is sufficient to satisfy the most exacting. It is an absolute medical fact, that the dread of disease will render one more profoundly miserable and unhappy, and will cause more mental and physical incompetents than will any severe, prolonged, actual sickness. People who are victims of nosophobia are probably the most miserable and wretched individuals on earth. This is essentially so because of the peculiar characteristics of the disease. It is an insinuating and insidious ailment and its progress is cumulative. When we begin to worry about our health the germ of nosophobia takes up its habitation in our midst and we never know another happy moment.
The dread of disease is probably more common now than it used to be, partly because people know more about it, and, therefore, have more material out of which to manufacture dreads, and partly because a large number of people have the leisure to worry about various symptoms and sensations that come to them, and the significance of which they exaggerate by dwelling on them until they become positive torments. It is particularly those who have not much to do, and, above all, those who have absolutely nothing to do who suffer most from the affection. Children never suffer from this malady because pains and aches have no significance to them. The probability of death through sickness never bothers them. Their minds are always occupied. They are always busy, they think only of life and of living. As we grow older, however, we become introspective and we permit conditions to favor the development of a wrong mental attitude. We accentuate the seriousness of each trifling pain and illness, and the specter of death looms up in the path of each ailment. Soon we spend needless time in worry and we imagine we are not as healthy as we ought to be and that we may probably die in the near future. This affects our temperament and our efficiency. Life is no longer tolerable or attractive, and we shortly are numbered with the failures and the incompetents.
One of the unfortunate consequences of nosophobia is that a victim of it not only renders her own life miserable, but she unfortunately affects the happiness of every member of the household. She is as a rule gloomy and morose, and this constant depressive environment is not conducive to the success of any effort toward creating moments of amusement and happiness. Her presence acts as a deterrent and repeated failures to overcome this domestic cloud finally result in a complete cessation of all effort. Things fall into a rut and each member of the family seek their various forms of diversion outside the home circle.
These individuals are sometimes spoken of as "trouble seekers." In a sense, the term is appropriate, because the troubles which wreck their peace of mind never occur. In the beginning there is usually some slight physical ailment. As a rule, it is some form of nervous indigestion. Under appropriate and adequate treatment such forms of indigestion are readily curable in ordinary individuals, but these patients are not ordinary individuals. They are perverse and opinionated. They have their own ideas. It is impossible to convince them that they are not as sick as they imagine. They think the physician fails to quite comprehend their cases,—that he does not recognize the serious side of the ailment, and so they are never wholly satisfied with medical assistance. The little incidental pains of the indigestion are indications of heart disease to such a patient and she acts in sympathy with this awful affliction; the real explanation being that the gas produced by the indigestion bothers the heart for the time being. She is very apt to diet as a consequence, one article after another being avoided until she is living on a starvation diet. She fails to appreciate the fact that she needs more nourishment, not less; that her stomach is in good condition, the fault being with her nerves. She finally becomes anemic and neurasthenic and a misanthrope.
The young wife can readily appreciate that, to expect domestic success and happiness under such circumstances, would be impossible. Yet there are young wives who develop this habit of accentuating their little pains and ailments inordinately, to their husbands, on every occasion. They adopt this dangerous means of exciting extra sympathy and caressing. Some do it in explanation of their failure to perform their household duties efficiently—a laziness plea pure and simple.
These inefficient and tricky little ladies find that it is easy to impose upon their unsuspecting husbands, so they proceed to work out the details to their own satisfaction. After spending the day sight-seeing or shopping or gossiping, and having neglected their work and feeling tired, they assume a becomingly abandoned position on the big, new, comfortable couch, practice a few heartbreaking sighs and experiment with the tear supply. These details are arranged and timed to be effective just as Jack opens the hall door with the latchkey. We can picture what follows without making any effort to dramatize the incident. But if the reader will try to create mental pictures of the frequently recurring home-comings under the same circumstances, she will develop interesting studies in domestic psychology as she watches the effect upon Jack when the truth begins to dawn upon him.
It needs no oracle to assure these women that they are traveling along a road that has only one ending. Love is as old as the hills, and the older it gets, like the wise old hills, a wiser old love it becomes. It exacts its price, and its price is an equal love. There never was a love born—except maternal love—that will sustain itself after the knowledge dawns upon it that it is being bartered away and imposed upon. The day of reckoning comes in time and the dream is over.
Do not forget that the first year of married life is the trial year—the real test of your soul-merit. During that first year you carve, as it were, on a monument, in a thousand different ways, the ineffaceable record of whether you deserve success and happiness in the struggle of life. In what should be the after-glow of love's young dream—the first precious weeks and months as a young wife—no element will be more subtly dangerous than the art of duplicity. Before a young wife determines to practice deception she should fully appreciate the inevitable consequences. If, under the mistaken idea that she can easily deceive her husband, because "he trusts me so," she believes she may continue to do so with impunity, she is the most elementary of all silly little fools. She has failed to observe that the great law of the universe acts in the interest of the rich and poor, the fool and the philosopher alike. She will become too clever and like all fools and criminals she will give herself away. She will wake up to find that she has been playing with the sacred things of earth—home and a husband's love; that, never again can she reëstablish the affection and confidence which she has trampled upon and defiled; that the future is a mortgaged hope and she herself an unclean and unworthy thing.
Practicing the art of duplicity in simulating physical ailments will, if persisted in, establish nosophobia. The patient will come to believe that she is not exactly well. She will establish the habit of feeling sick. This will render her mind diseased and the diseased mind will in turn suggest new and additional aches and pains, and she will soon not know whether she is sick or well. The dread of disease will effect its retribution and soon she will be, in fact, an unhappy and an unsuccessful young wife.