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NTENT AND WORRY
XVII COWARDICE AND WORRY
XVIII WORRY ABOUT MANNERS AND SPEECH
XIX THE WORRIES OF JEALOUSY
XX THE WORRIES OF SUSPICION
XXI THE WORRIES OF IMPATIENCE
XXII THE WORRIES OF ANTICIPATION
XXIII HOW OUR WORRY AFFECTS OTHERS
XXIV WORRY VERSUS INDIFFERENCE
XXV WORRIES AND HOBBIES
JUST BE GLAD
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
O heart of mine, we shouldn't worry so, What we have missed of calm we couldn't have, you know!
What we've met of stormy pain, And of sorrow's driving rain, We can better meet again, If it blow.
We have erred in that dark hour, we have known, When the tear fell with the shower, all alone.
Were not shine and shower blent As the gracious Master meant? Let us temper our content With His own.
For we know not every morrow Can be sad; So forgetting all the sorrow We have had, Let us fold away our fears, And put by our foolish tears, And through all the coming years, Just be glad.
FOREWORD
Between twenty and thirty years ago, I became involved in a series of occurrences and conditions of so painful and distressing a character that for over six months I was unable to sleep more than one or two hours out of the twenty-four. In common parlance I was "worrying myself to death," when, mercifully, a total collapse of mind and body came. My physicians used the polite euphemism of "cerebral congestion" to describe my state which, in reality, was one of temporary insanity, and it seemed almost hopeless that I should ever recover my health and poise. For several months I hovered between life and death, and my brain between reason and unreason.
In due time, however, both health and mental poise came back in reasonable measure, and I asked myself what would be the result if I returned to the condition of worry that culminated in the disaster. This question and my endeavors at its solution led to the gaining of a degree of philoso