The neurasthenic is born and not made to order, but it is only by assiduous cultivation that he can hope to become a finished product. To elucidate the fact presented by the latter half of the preceding sentence is the purpose of this little book.

In telling a story it is always best to begin at the beginning. I shall start by saying that I was born poor and without any opportunities, therefore I ought to have been able to accomplish almost anything. The reader will readily agree that the best inheritance that the average American boy can have is indigence and lack of opportunity. For getting on in the world and for carving out one’s own little niche, nothing beats having poverty-stricken, but sensible and respectable parents. Many a fellow has been heard to deplore the lack of opportunities in his early youth when, in reality, nothing stood in his way, unless it may have been the rather unhandy handicap of being poor. Money may sometimes enable one to get recognition in the hall of fame, and sometimes it is instrumental in getting one’s picture in the rogues’ gallery.

So I consider myself fortunate in having been born well, except that I inherited a neurosis instead of an estate. “Neurosis” and “neurotic” are docile terms after you once form their acquaintance. They broke into my vocabulary while I was yet at a tender age, and during all the intervening years I have learned more and more about them, both from literary and experimental standpoints.

A neurosis is a nervous symptom of some sort, and if you have a sufficient number and variety of them you are a neurasthenic. If you ever get so that you can move in neurasthenic circles, you will always be foolish about your health and your physical and mental well-being. It is quite common for us to ascribe all our defects to heredity. Poor old, overworked heredity is the dumping-ground for the most of our laziness, perversity and shortcomings! If we have a bad temper, a penchant for whiskey, or a wryneck, heredity has the brunt to bear. We can always give our imperfections a little veneering by saying that they were an inheritance.

Granting the significance of heredity as a factor in causing suffering, I wish to emphasize the fact that we can inherit only tendencies, or the raw material, as it were. We do the rest ourselves, and work out our respective salvations either with or without fear and trembling. Quite often improper training and adverse environment at an impressionable age start us on the wrong track. And that brings me to the point.

With this seeming digression in order to prepare the reader’s mind for what is to follow, I return to my infancy—in fancy. At the age of twenty-four hours, so I am told, I considered it necessary to have a lighted lamp in my room at night. Other habits affecting my special senses followed in rapid succession. The visitors began pouring in to see me on the second day, and I think it was a morbid interest that any one could work up over such a red, speckled mite of humanity as I must have been. They all insisted on digging me out of my nest, taking me up and rolling me about, when it was my natural inclination to want to sleep nearly all the time. From this procedure I soon grew restless and disturbed sleep followed.

For the first two or three days I had no desire for nourishment, so far as I can remember now, but a number of concoctions were put down my unwilling little throat. As I have since learned, a babe, like a chick, is born with sufficient nourishment in its stomach to tide it along a few days without parental intervention. You might be able to convince a hen mother of this fact, but a human mother—never! So when I cried, it was for two or three reasons: My feelings were outraged, or the variety of teas had created a gas on my stomach which made me feel very uncomfortable (the old ladies called it “misery”). Then I cried because I thought, or rather felt, that the air-cells of my lungs needed expansion, and the crying act assisted materially in doing this. If I could have talked or sung, I should not have cried. Crying was the easiest and most natural thing for me to do. It was then that I was introduced to the paregoric bottle, and I very soon began to form the habit. My dear, good mother would have been terribly incensed had any one suggested that her darling was becoming a little dope fiend.

Remedies soon lost their soporific effect on me, or I acquired tolerance to the usual dosage, and the folks had to hunt up new things to give. I took soothing syrups and “baby’s friends” galore. The night and the day were not rightly divided for me; when I slept, it was during the day when others were awake, and vice versa. I became a spoiled, pampered child, and gained a great deal of attention and sympathy, in consequence of which I became a veritable little bundle of nerves. While yet in my mother’s arms, I manifested many of the whims and vagaries which were destined to crop out more strenuously as I grew older.

Ah, mothers, why does that big, loving heart of yours never falter or grow weary in the performance of what you think is your bounden duty toward your attention-loving little one? If Willie is not sick—and perhaps even if he is—he needs a great deal of letting alone. Why jeopardize your own health in perpetuating these midnight seances with him, thus engendering in him a habit that will grow into “nerves,” and perhaps later into shattered health or a weakened character? Better let him cry it out once and for all! But you are mothers, and motherhood being a heaven-born institution, there is supposed to be a maternal instinct that ever guides you aright. This I have the hardihood to seriously question.