214 THK XKKVOUS SYSTKM AM) ITS ( '< >\SKK\ ATK )\ 



when one has recogni/ed signs of nervous fatigue will ol'ien 

 exert a prolonged and favorable influence on one's condi- 

 tion. It is hard to find a congenial companion for such an 

 excursion, and on some accounts it is not a bad plan to go 

 alone. There can then be no clash of wishes, and it may be 

 profoundly restful not to be obliged to talk. The gentle 

 mental stirring which attends the uncertainty regarding 

 the course and ending of each stage is exceedingly whole- 

 some. Equally so on the physical side is the profuse out- 

 puring of perspiration and the compensatory water drink- 

 ing. Milage hotels rather than farmhouses are to be 

 recommended as stopping-places. They do not impose 

 the obligation of sociability upon the tired wayfarer and 

 they usually offer him the luxury of a hot bath. 



Sea-voyages are often beneficial to those who lack vigor 

 for more active recreation. There is hardly another situa- 

 tion in which individual responsibility is so successfully 

 annulled and one's fortunes so absolutely committed to 

 others. But the life on shipboard does not appeal to all 

 temperaments. The scenic aspect of the ocean present > 

 abundant variety to the observer who loves it, but another 

 finds it monotonous. 



\\ V have previously maintained that intellectual inter- 

 ests ought to make for stability of nervous organi/ation. 

 It should now be clear that what the neurasthenic most 

 lacks is sense of proportion. His own concerns are mag- 

 nified unduly, and the present circumstances are allowed 

 too greatly to outweigh those which have obtained in the 

 pa-1 and may return in the future. It is a mark of mental 

 >oundness to be able to overrule such a tendency. If a 

 man passing through temporary troubles can live over the 

 happier events of an earlier lime, and can reali/e the prob- 

 ability that they will again be realixed. he is sustained by 

 these tie- aa the Alpine tourist is held safe by the other 

 members of his parly. 



Some knowledge of science is well calculated to fortify 



against egotism, ll is hard to see how anyone who 



possesses the scientist's grasp of time and -pace call fall 



