TEAR ROUND, AND BREAK THINGS. 91 



ment, also, is another prominent cause. Religious excitement, 

 domestic troubles, misfortunes, money-losses, are excesses 

 that drive many people mad, because so much of the thoughts 

 and energies of body and mind are excessively devoted to 

 one subject. Hence poets, musicians, and artists who are 

 excessively devoted to their occupations, are notedly apt 

 subjects for insane-hospitals. And there is no more marked 

 cause for insanity than anxiety, worry, fret, strain, and un- 

 ceasing and monotonous work of every kind. 



Let it not be understood, however, that the ordinary work 

 of the farmer is productive of insanity. The work of sow- 

 ing, harvesting, care of stock and buildings, the good house- 

 wife's duties, have in themselves a change and variety, with 

 the differing seasons of the year, which more than compen- 

 sate for the daily monotony. Good hard muscular work 

 regularly and faithfully entered into with zest and spirit, 

 which brings a good appetite three times a day, and insures 

 a good eight-hours' sleep every night, is a boon which 

 insanity never comes near. But when this work is sup- 

 plemented with some mental trouble, when to hard hoeing 

 and gathering is added some domestic anxiety, some sharp 

 grief, some necessary fear about property, — any causes which 

 produce mental depression, or a constant dissatisfaction, dis- 

 trust, displeasure, or fear, — then a farmer's toil may be a 

 cause of insanity indeed. When a farmer can not and will 

 not take occasionally a day or a week to recreate, to visit 

 relatives to see how they get on, learn how they live, get new 

 ideas from other people about work and play (both), when 

 this is not done, then expect to find a man or woman, some- 

 times both, who growl about the success of neighbors, who 

 bemoan their sad fate, sit down by the kitchen-stove, think, 

 talk, worry, and wear out themselves by considering their 

 hard fate, and thus prepare themselves for an insane-hospital, 

 rather than to fly around, tear and break a good many things, 

 and move on and upwards in the world, and thus set in- 

 sanity at defiance. An occasional loafing-day with the best 

 clothes on, a yearly week or two spent where you don't sleep 

 in your own beds, drink your own water, eat your own food, 

 see home and familiar sights, but get some new food for 

 thought and reflection, is one of the best ways to fight at 

 long range with insanity. 



