"What cannot be remedied must be endured!"
What a wealth of wisdom in the proverb! One seeks to establish an ideal
of fortitude, of patience, of fidelity to duty,--old-fashioned words,
but serenity of spirit is their meaning. Suddenly to come face to face
with one's self, to strip away the self-imposed disguise, to see clearly
that jealousy, impatience, luxurious, and never satisfied tastes, a
selfish and restless spirit, are back of ennui and fatigue, pains and
aches of body and mind, is to step into a true self-understanding.

If a situation demands action, even drastic action, "surgical" action,
then that action must be forthcoming, even though it hurts. To end
doubt, perplexity, to cease being buffeted between hither and yon, is to
end an intolerable life situation. I have in mind certain domestic
situations, such as the effort to keep up in appearance and activity
with those of more means and ability.

Sexual difficulties, so important and so common, demand the cooperation
of the husband for remedy. He should be seen (for usually the wife
consults the physician alone) and the situation gone over with him. Men
are usually willing to help, willing to seek a way out. A neurasthenic
wife is a sore trial to the patience and endurance of her husband and he
is anxious enough to help cure her.

Where there is conflict of other kinds the situation is complicated by
the intricacy of the factors. Financial difficulties especially wear
down the patience and endurance of the partners, and the physician
cannot prescribe a golden cure. In prosperous times there is less
neurasthenia than in the unprosperous, just as there is less suicide.

Sometimes it is just one thing, one difficulty, over which the conflict
rages. I have in mind two such cases, where one habit of the husband
deenergized his wife by outraging her pride and love. When he was
induced to yield on this point the wife came back to herself,--a highly
strung, very efficient self.

In fact, the basis of treatment is the painstaking study of the
individual woman and then the painstaking _adjustment_ of that
individual woman. It may mean the adjustment of the whole life
situation to that housewife, or conversely the adjustment of the
housewife to the life situation.

In many marital difficulties that one sees, not so much in practice as
in contact with normal married couples, the trouble reminds one of the
orang-outang in Kipling's story who had "too much Ego in his