emotions are constantly side-tracking her away from
the main cause of her difficulty, and so keeping her nervous. A nervous
woman's desire to get her own way--and strained rebellion at not
getting her own way--bedazzles or befogs her brain so that her nerves
twist off into all sorts of emotions which have nothing whatever to do
with the main cause. The woman with the troublesome relative wants to
be considered good and kind and generous. The woman with the nervous
money conscience wants to be considered upright and just in her
dealings with others. All women with various expressions of nervous
conscience want to ease their consciences for the sake of their own
comfort--not in the least for the sake of doing right.

I write first of the nervous hypocrite because in her case the nervous
strain is deeper in and more difficult to find. To watch such a woman
is like seeing her in a terrible nightmare, which she steadily
"sugar-coats" by her complacent belief in her own goodness. If, among a
thousand nervous "saints" who may read these words, one is thereby
enabled to find herself out, they are worth the pains of writing many
times over. The nervous hypocrites who do not find themselves out get
sicker and sicker, until finally they seem to be of no use except to
discipline those who have the care of them.

The greatest trouble comes through the befogging emotions. A woman
begins to feel a nervous strain, and that strain results in exciting
emotions; these emotions again breed more emotions until she becomes a
simmering mass of exciting and painful emotions which can be aroused to
a boiling point at any moment by anything or any one who may touch a
sensitive point. When a woman's emotions are aroused, and she is
allowing herself to be governed by them, reason is out of the question,
and any one who imagines that a woman can be made to understand common
sense in a state like that will find himself entirely mistaken.

The only cure is for the woman herself to learn first how entirely
impervious to common sense she is when she is in the midst of an
emotional nerve storm, so that she will say, "Don't try to talk to me
now; I am not reasonable, wait until I get quiet." Then, if she will go
off by herself and drop her emotions, and also the strain behind her
emotions, she will often come to a good, clear judgment without outside
help; or, if not, she will come to the point where she will be ready
and grateful to receive help from