Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/156

144 that will make the world better and that will permit her to talk about them in public, and yet she desires as well to keep the position in life to which she was born. Speak to her suddenly and see her start. That means overtaxed nerves. Get her to talk to you about one of her plans and see how she flushes, notice the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, and watch the quivering of her lips and her hands. That woman is on the verge of nervous prostration. And why? She is living an abnormal life. She is neglecting her duties, and is permitting herself to be worn out to interest people who do not care in the least for her.

To me she is dreadful—this woman of to-day—and I do not want any one of my girls to be like her. She does no real work, she only worries, and worry is very apt to kill. Work properly done, systematically arranged for and carefully and easily carried out, does not wear women out. It is only when it is rush, rush, rush, fret, fret, fret, that women become bundles of overstrung nerves, tied with the red ribbon of continual excitement. But the ribbon comes untied and the nerves are free, and what is the result? A fretful answer to a question asked by a member of the household, inattention to one's duties because the head and the eyes ache so "they are almost killing me," and then, too often there follows the resort to a stimulant of some kind. The tears come to the eyes very easily, the