Part 15

"Add this suggestion to the verse, 'It might have been a great deal worse.'"

A fruitful source of discomfort for the worrier at home is the absence of occupation. He looks forward to mental rest after using his brain all day, but there is no rest for him unless in sleep. The most valuable rest he could give his mind would be to occupy it with something worth while, yet not so strenuous as to cause solicitude. As Saleeby points out, the mock worry of a game is a good antidote for the real worry of life, and a game is far better than nothing, unless the player make, in turn, a work of his play, in which case worry continues.

The hardest task for the worrier at home is to get away from home. With advancing years the temptation grows upon us to spend our evenings by the fireside, to make no new friends and seek no new enjoyments. But this unbroken habit is neither the best preparation for a happy old age, nor the best method of counteracting present worry. Nor should one stop to decide whether the special entertainment in question will be worthwhile--he must depend rather on the realization that if he accepts most opportunities he will be, on the whole, the gainer.

The man whose occupation keeps him in-doors all day should make special effort to pass some time in the open air, if possible walking or driving to and from his place of business, and taking at least a stroll in the evening.

As more than one writer has suggested, the best resource is the fad. The fad will prove an inestimable boon after withdrawing from active work, but it should be commenced long before one discontinues business, else the chances are that he will never take it up, but will fret away his time like the average man who retires from an occupation which has engrossed his attention.

The fad should not be pursued too strenuously, or its charm is lost. A lady once told me that she had given up studying flowers because she found she could not master botany in the time at her disposal. Another sees no use in taking up history unless he can become an authority on some epoch. Another declines to study because he can never overtake the college graduate. But one of the best informed men of my acquaintance had no college education. One of his fads was history, with which he was far more familiar than any but the exceptional college man, outside the teachers of that branch of learning.

The usefulness of the fad does not depend upon the perfection attained in its pursuit, but upon the pleasure in its pursuit, and upon the diversion of the mind from its accustomed channels. The more completely one learns to concentrate his thoughts on an avocation, the more enthusiasm and effectiveness he can bring to bear on his vocation in its turn. A fad that occupies the hands, such as carpentering, turning, or photography, is peculiarly useful if one's taste runs in that direction.

One handicap in cultivating the fad is the lack of interest on the part of our associates, but if we become genuinely interested in any fad that is at all worth while, we shall inevitably add new acquaintances likely to prove at least as interesting as those of our present friends, who have no thoughts outside their daily round of toil. The more fads one cultivates, so long as he avoids the obsession to obtrude them at all times and places, the more interesting he will, in his turn, become to others.

The over-solicitude that defeats its own end, in the case of a parent, has been admirably portrayed by Arthur Benson in "Beside Still Waters,"--"there was nothing in the world that he more desired than the company and the sympathy of his children; but he had, beside this, an intense and tremulous sense of his responsibility toward them. He attached an undue importance to small indications of character, and thus the children were seldom at ease with their father, because he rebuked them constantly, and found frequent fault, doing almost violence to his tenderness, not from any pleasure in censoriousness, but from a terror, that was almost morbid, of the consequences of the unchecked development of minute tendencies."

Something must be left to natural growth, and to fortune, even in such important matters as the rearing of children.

XII.

THE WORRIER ON HIS TRAVELS

After all, is it not a part of the fine art of living to take the enjoyment of the moment as it comes without lamenting that it is not something else?

LILIAN WHITING: Land of Enchantment.

In no phase of life is the worrying and the "fussy" habit more noticeable than in travel. This is, perhaps, partly because the lack of self-confidence, which so often unsettles the worrier, is peculiarly effective when he has relinquished the security of his accustomed anchorage. This applies surely to the over-solicitous attention paid by the traveler to the possible dangers of rail and sea. Here is a verse from Wallace Irwin:

"'Suppose that this here vessel,' says the skipper with a groan, 'Should lose 'er bearin's, run away and bump upon a stone; Suppose she'd shiver and go down when save ourselves we could'nt.' The mate replies, 'Oh, blow me eyes! Suppose agin she shouldn't?'"

A common direction taken by the worrying habit, in the traveler, is that of taking in advance each step of the journey, preparing for every contingency, and suffering beforehand every imaginable hardship and inconvenience. I do not vouch for the story (though I can match it without going far afield) of the gentleman who abandoned his trip from Paris to Budapesth because he found he would be delayed in Vienna six hours, "too long time to wait in the station, and not long enough to go to the hotel." It is the imperative duty of every traveler to discover interests which shall tide him over a few hours' delay wherever it may occur.

It is by no means a waste of time to familiarize ourselves with the geography at least of our own country; to know the situation and appearance of every city of importance, and to know something about the different railroads besides their initials, and their rating in the stock market. Again, if we take up the study of the trees, flowers and birds, with the aid of the admirable popular works now available, we shall not only view the scenery with new eyes, but shall welcome, rather than be driven to despair, by a breakdown in the woods.

It is a mistake to shun our fellow-travelers, from whom we should rather try to learn something. This is a solace in traveling alone, for the boon companion may handicap us in cultivating new acquaintances and gaining new impressions. Though the main object of recreation is diversion from the daily round of thought, the fact need not be lost sight of that the busy man will find his practical interests furthered, rather than hindered, by a little widening of the horizon. Nor should he forget, meantime, the admonition of Seneca that if he would wish his travels delightful he must first make himself delightful.

It is inevitable that uncomfortable, as well as agreeable, experiences occur in travel. But the man who spends his time and thought in avoiding the one and seeking the other is steadily forging chains whose gall shall one day surpass the discomforts of a journey around the world. Arthur Benson in "Beside Still Waters" says that Hugh learned one thing at school, namely, that the disagreeable was not necessarily the intolerable. Some of us would do well to go back to school and learn this over again. I know of only two ways by which the discomforts of travel can be avoided. One is to ignore them, the other to stay at home.

A fellow traveler told me that on one occasion, in the presence of a beautiful bit of mountain scenery, he overheard two ladies in anxious consultation comparing, article by article, the corresponding menus of two rival hotels. The fact that three varieties of fish were offered at one, while only two were offered at the other, opened so animated a discussion of quantity as opposed to probable quality that the listener discretely withdrew.

A lady on the Florida express, after reading a novel all day with an occasional interim, during which she gazed through her lorgnette with bored and anxious air, finally said to her companion, "I have not seen a single estate which compares to those in Brookline."

Among the varieties of needless worry imposed upon the traveler by the insistent habit, none is more common, or more easily overcome, than the refusal to sleep unless noise and light are quite shut out. If the sufferer make of his insistent habit a servant, rather than a master, and instead of reiterating "I must have quiet and darkness," will confidently assert, "I must get over this nonsense," he will speedily learn that freedom from resentment, and a good circulation of air, are more conducive to sleep than either darkness or silence.

The best drug for the sleepless traveler is the æquo animo of Cicero.

XIII.

THE WORRIER AT THE TABLE

These little things are great to little man.

GOLDSMITH: The Traveller.