There is one kind of energy discharger that we may call the
hyperkinetic, controlled practical type. This group is characterized by great and constant
activity, well controlled by purpose, with eagerness and enthusiasm manifested in each act
but not excessively.
1. A. is one of these people. In school he specialized in athletics and was a fine
all-round player in almost every sport. When he left high school to go to work he at once
entered business. His employers soon found him to be a tireless worker, steady and
purposeful in everything. In addition to carrying on his duties by day, A. studied nights,
carefully choosing his subjects so that they related directly to his business. Despite the
fact that his work was hard and his studies exacting, A. had energy enough left to join
social organizations and to take a leading part in their affairs. He became quickly known
as one of those busy people who always are ready to take on more work. Naturally this led
to his becoming a leader, first in his social relations and second in his business. Always
practical in his judgments and actions, A. fell in love with the daughter of a rich family
and married her, with the full approval of her relatives, who were keen enough to see that
his energy, power and control were destined for success.
The leading traits that A. manifests hinge around his high energy and control. He is
honest and conventional, devoted to the ideals of his group and admires learning, but he
is not in any sense a scholar. He is a poor speaker, in the ordinary sense of that term,
but curiously effective, nevertheless, because his earnest energy and sturdy common sense
win approval as "not a theorist." But mainly he wins because he is tireless in
energy and enthusiasm and yet has yoked these qualities to ordinary purposes. The average
man he meets understands him thoroughly, sympathizes with him completely and accepts him
as a leader after his own heart.
So A. has become rich and respected. As times goes on, as he is brought more and more
into contact with large affairs outside of business; as a trustee of hospitals and a
director of charitable organizations, he broadens out but not into an "unsafe"
attitude. He pities the unfortunate but is not truly sympathetic, in that it rarely occurs
to him that success and failure are relative, that an accident might have shipwrecked his
fortunes and that his good qualities are as innate as his complexion. For this man prides
himself on his strong will and courage, whereas he merely has within him a fine engine in
whose construction he had no part.
2. The hyperkinetic, controlled, impractical person. B. is, in the fundamentals of
energy and control, singularly like A., but because of the nature of his interests and
purposes their lives have completely diverged so that no one would ordinarily recognize
the kinship in type. B. is and always has been a worker, enthusiastic and enduring, and he
has stuck to his last with a fidelity that is remarkable. He is very likable in the
ordinary sense,--pleasant to look at, cheerful, ready to joke, laugh or to help the other
fellow. Nevertheless, he has only a few friends and is a distinctly disappointed man at
heart, because his interests are in the ordinary sense, impractical.
B. early became interested in physiology. From the very start he found in the workings
of the human body a fascination that concentrated his efforts. Poor, he worked hard enough
to obtain scholarships and fellowships in one university after another until finally he
became a Ph. D. Here was a great error from the practical standpoint; for had he become an
M. D., he would have had a profession that offered an independent financial future. But,
in his zeal, he did not wish to take on the extended program of the physician, and he saw
clearly that he might become a better scientist as a Ph. D. He became a teacher in one
school after another, did a good deal of research work, but has not been fortunate enough
to make any epoch-making discoveries. He is one of those splendid, painstaking, energetic
men found in every university who turn out good pieces of work of which only a few know
anything, and from which in the course of time some genius or lucky scientist culls a few
facts upon which to build up a great theory or a new doctrine. He married one of his own
students, a fine woman but unluckily not very strong, and so there fell on him many a
domestic duty that a thousand extra dollars a year would have turned over to a maid.
Thus B. is an obscure but respected member of the faculty of a small university. He
teaches well, though he dislikes it, and he is happy at the times when he works hard at
some physiological problem. He loves his family and has vowed that his son will be a
business man. He feels inferior as he contemplates his obscure existence, with its
precarious financial state, its drudgery and most of all the gradual disappearance of his
ideals. He is frank to himself alone, wishes he had made money, but is apt to sneer at the
world of the "fat and successful" as less than his intellectual equal. He
compares his own rewards with that of the successful man knowing less and with a narrower
outlook.
Thus, through success, A. is broadening and becoming something of an idealist. B. is
narrowing and through failure is losing his ideals. This is not an uncommon effect of
success and failure. Where success leads to arrogance and conceit it narrows, but where
the character withstands this result the increased experience and opportunity is of great
value to character. Failure may embitter and thus narrow through envy and lost energy, but
also it may strip away conceit and overestimation and thus lead to a richer insight into
life.
3. The hyperkinetic, uncontrolled or shallow. This type, although quick and apparently
energetic, is deficient in a fundamental of the personality, in the organizing energy.
This deficiency may extend into all phases of the mental life or in only a few phases.
Thus we see people whose thinking is rapid, energetic, but they cannot "stick"
to one line of thought long enough to reach a goal. Others are similarly situated in
regard to purposes; they are enthusiastic, easily stirred into activity, but rarely do
their purposes remain fixed long enough for success. As a rule this class is inconstant in
affections, though warm and sympathetic. They gush but never organize their philanthropic
efforts, so that they rarely do any real good. Often the most lovable of people, they are
at the same time the despair of those who know them best.
M. is a woman who makes a fine first impression, is very pretty, with nice manners and
a quick, flattering interest in every one she meets. She is usually classed as intelligent
because she is vivacious, that is, her mind follows the trend of things quickly, and she
marshals whatever she knows very readily. As one who knows her well says, "She shows
all her goods the first time. You really do not know how slender her stock in trade is
until you see the same goods and tricks every time you meet her." Needless to say her
critic is a woman.
M. is interested in something new each week. The "new" usually fascinates
her, and she becomes so extraordinarily busy that she hardly has time to eat or sleep. She
is always put on committees if the organization heads do not know her, but if they do, she
is carefully slated for something of no importance. After a short time her interest has
shifted to something else. Thus she passes from work in behalf of blind babies to raising
funds for a home for indigent actors; from energy spent in philanthropy to energy spent in
learning the latest dances. Her enthusiasm never cools off, though its goal always
changes.
Fortunately she is married to a rich man who views her with affection and a shrug of
his shoulders. Her children know her; now and then, she becomes extraordinarily interested
in their welfare, much to their disgust and rebellion, for they have long since sized her
up.
She has often been on the verge of a love affair with some man who is professionally
interested in something into which she has leaped for a short time. She raves about him,
follows him, flatters and adores him, and then, before the poor fellow knows where he is
at, she is out of love and off somewhere else. This mutability of affection has
undoubtedly saved her from disaster.
Were she not rich, M. would be one of the social problems that the social workers
cannot understand or handle, e. g., there is a type who never sticks to anything, not
because he is bored quickly, or is inefficient, but because he is at the mercy of the new
and irrelevant. Without sufficient means he throws up his job and tries to get the new
work he longs to do. Sometimes he fails to get it, and then he becomes an unemployed
problem.
This type of uncontrolled energy reaches its height in the manical or manic phase of
the disease already described as manic depressive insanity. The "manic
personality," which need not become insane, is characterized by high energy,
vivacious emotions, rapid flow of thought and irrelevant associations.
4. The mesokinetic--medium or average in their energy (feeling and power)--run the
range of the vast groups we call the average. This type is spurred on by necessity, custom
and habit to steady work and steady living. Possessed of practical wisdom, their world is
narrow, their affections only called out for their kindred and immediate friends. Their
interests are largely away from their work and as a rule do not include the past or future
of the race. Usually conservative, they accept the moral standards as absolute and are
quick to resent changes in custom. They follow leaders cheerfully, are capable of intense
loyalty to that cause which they believe to stand for their interests. Yet each individual
of the mass of men, though he never rises above mediocrity, presents to his intimates a
grouping of qualities and peculiarities that gives him a distinct personality.
C. is one of those individuals whose mediocre energy has stood between him and
so-called success. At present he is forty and occupies about the same position that he did
at twenty. As a boy he was fond of play but never excelled in any sport and never occupied
a place of leadership. He had the usual pugnacious code of boys, but because he was
friendly and good-natured rarely got into a fight. He liked to read and was rather above
the average in intelligence, but he never tackled the difficult reading, confining himself
to the "interesting" novel and easy information. He left high school when he was
sixteen and immediately on leaving he dropped all study. He entered an office as errand
boy and was recognized as faithful and industrious, but he showed no especial initiative
or energy. In the course of time he was promoted from one position to another until he
became a shipper at the age of twenty. Since this time he has remained at this post
without change, except that when he got married and on a few occasions afterward, when the
cost of living rose, his salary was raised.
C. is married, and his wife often "nags" him because he does not get ahead.
She tells him that he has no energy and fight in him, that if he would he could do better.
Sometimes he takes refuge in the statement that he has no pull, that those who have been
promoted over his head are favorites for some reason or another, and he rarely recognizes
the superiority of his immediate superiors, though he is loyal enough to the boss. He
lives in that "quiet despair" that Thoreau so aptly describes as the life of the
average man, and he seeks escape from it in smoking, in belonging to a variety of
fraternal organizations, in the movies and the detective story. He is a "good"
father and husband, which means that he turns over all his earnings, is faithful and kind.
Except that he admonishes and punishes his children when they are "bad," he
takes no constructive share in their training and leaves that to the mother, the church
and the school. He and his wife are attached to one another through habit and mutual need,
but they have some time since outlived passion and intense affection. She has sized him up
as a failure and knows herself doomed to struggle against poverty, and he knows that she
understands him. This mutual "understanding" keeps them at arm's length except
in the face of danger or disaster, when they cling to each other for comfort and support.
This is the history of many a marriage that on its surface is quiet and peaceful.
The hypokinetic types. We cannot separate energy display from enthusiasm, courage,
intelligence, persistent purpose, etc. If I have made myself clear in the preceding pages
of this book, you will realize that no character of man works alone, but all feeling,
thought and action is a resultant of forces. Nevertheless, there are those in whom the
fire of life burns high and others in whom it burns low, and either group may be of
totally different qualities otherwise.
There are people of low energy discharge, and these it seems to me are of two main
kinds,--the one where nothing seems to arouse or create powerful motives and purposes, and
the other in whom the main defect is a rapidly arising exhaustion. The first I call the
simple hypokinetic group and the other the irritable hypokinetic group.
The simple hypokinetic person may be one of any grade of intelligence but more commonly
is of low intelligence. In any school for the feeble-minded one finds the apathetic
imbecile, who can be kept at work by goading and stimulation of one kind or another, who
does not tire especially, but who never works beyond a low level of speed and enthusiasm.
5. A more interesting type is T. He may be called the intelligent hypokinetic, the
high-grade failure. As a baby he learned to walk late, though he talked early and well. He
played in a leisurely sort of way, running only when he had to and content as a rule to be
in the house. He was not seclusive, seeming to enjoy the company of other children, but
rarely made any efforts to seek them out. He was quick to learn but showed only a moderate
curiosity, and he rarely made any investigations on his own account. It was noticed that
he seldom asked "why" in the usual manner of intelligent children.
He did fairly well in school; he had a wonderful memory and seemed to see very quickly
into intricate problems. It was always a great surprise of his teachers that he was so
bright, as one said, in comparison to his standing. Once or twice a zealous teacher sought
to stimulate him into more effort and study, but though he responded for a short time,
gradually he slipped back into his own easy pace. He went through high school, and on the
basis of a splendid memory and a keen intelligence, which by this time were easily
recognized, he was sent to college. He took no part in athletics and little part in the
communal college activities. He had so good a command of facts and with this so cynical a
point of view that he became quite a college character and was pointed out as a fellow who
could lead his class if he would. As a matter of fact, nothing could spur him to real
competitive effort.
We may pass briefly over his life. After he left college, he drifted from one position
to another. Usually in some hack literary line. Were it not for a small income he would
have starved. After a few years he become very fat and gross looking, and then came a
kindly pneumonia which carried him off.
We must not mistake the stolid for the hypokinetic. There was a classmate of mine in
the medical school, a large, quiet fellow, D. M., who got by everything, as the boys said,
by the skin of his teeth. He worked without enthusiasm or zeal, studied infrequently and
managed to pass along to his second year, at about the bottom of the class. In that year
we took up bacteriology, the "bug-bear" as one punster put it, of the school.
Just what it was about the subject that aroused D. M. I never knew, but a remarkable
transformation took place. The man changed over, studied hard, read outside literature and
actually asked for the privilege of working in the laboratory Sundays and holidays so that
he might learn more. When this was known to the rest of the class, there were bets placed
that he would not "last," but quite to the surprise of everybody D. M. gained in
momentum as he went along. As a matter of fact, his interest on the subject grew, and he
is now a bacteriologist of good standing. In fact, his lack of interest in other matters
has helped him, since he has no distracting tastes or pleasures.
Thus there are persons of specialized interest and energy, and it may well be that
there is for most of the hypokinetic a line of work that would act to energize them. The
problem, therefore, in each case is to find the latent ability and interest and to regard
no case as really hopeless. I say this despite the fact that I believe some cases are
hopeless. The pessimistic attitude on the part of parent or teacher kills effort; the
optimistic attitude fosters energetic effort.
6. The irritable hypokinetic. Irritability[1] of a pathological type as a phase of
lowered energy is well known to every physiologist and in the practical everyday world is
seen in the tired and sick. There are people who from the very start of life show lowered
endurance, who respond to certain stimuli in an excessive manner and are easily exhausted.
This type the neurologist calls the congenital neurasthenic, and it may be we are dealing
here with some defect in the elimination of fatigue products. This, however, is only a
guess, and the disease factor, if there is any, is entirely unknown. I do not pretend that
the person I am to describe is entirely representative of this group. Indeed, no dozen
cases would show all the symptoms and peculiarities of the irritable hypokinetic group.
[1] One must take care not to mistake the irritability which is the characteristic of
all living tissue for the irritability here considered.
E. is a man at present thirty years of age. In person he is of average height, rather
slender, with delicate features, somewhat bald, quick in action and speech. He flushes
easily and thus often has high color, especially when fatigued or excited. This
"vasomotor irritability," as the physicians call it, is quite common in this
group of people, and in fact in all neurasthenia, whether acquired or congenital. Though I
have described E. as belonging to the slender type of person, it is necessary to say that
stout, rugged-looking people are often irritable and hypokinetic.
As a child E. "never could stand excitement or strain," as his mother says.
What is meant is this: that he became overexcited under almost any circumstances and
became profoundly fatigued afterwards. As we have seen, the intense diffusion of
excitement throughout the whole body is a sign of the childish and inferior organism; as
maturity approaches and throughout childhood excitability decreases and is better
localized. When a noise is heard an infant jumps, and so do people like E., but the better
controlled merely turn their head and eyes to see what the source of the noise may be.
This lack of control of excitement extended in E.'s case to play, entertainment, novelty
of any kind, crowds and especially to the disagreeable excitement of quarrels, fights,
terrifying experiences, etc. Under anger he trembled, grew pale, and his shouts and
screams were beyond control; under fear he became actually sick, vomited and showed a
liability to syncope of an alarming kind. E. was not the selfish type of the neurasthenic;
he was gentle and kind and ready to share with everybody, a lovable boy of an intensely
sociable nature. Nevertheless, his high excitability and his quick fatigue made it
necessary to shelter him, for any effort at toughening merely brought about a
"breakdown."
Here we must reemphasize the fundamental importance of the fatigue reactions. The
normal fatigue reaction is to feel weary, to desire rest and to be able to rest and sleep.
The abnormal reaction, one directly opposed to the well-being of the individual, is to
feel exhausted, to become restless and to find it difficult to sleep. There are children
who thrive on excitement and exertion; they sleep sounder for it, they recuperate readily
and gain in strength and endurance with every ordinary burden put upon them. There are
others to whom anything but the least excitement and exertion acts as a poison, making
them restless and exhausted. Not all children who show this perverse fatigue reaction grow
up with it. It may be only a temporary phase of their lives, but while it lasts it is very
troublesome.
In E.'s case the overexcitable hypokinetic stage lasted until about the ninth year, and
then there was a great improvement, though he still was of the same general type. He
became a fairly good runner for a short distance, learned to swim, though he stood the
cold water poorly, was clever and graceful as a dancer and was quite popular. At sixteen
he left school to enter business, because of the straitened means of his family. He
entered into adolescent period later and suffered greatly from his sixteenth to nineteenth
year from, fatigue, hypochondriacal fears, and had to have a good deal of medical
attention at this time. Sex questions perplexed him, for he became quite passionate and at
the same time had much moral repugnance to illicit relations. His sexual curiosity was
intense, and he read all manner of books on the subject, went to the burlesque shows on
the sly and almost became obsessed on sex matters.
At this stage he made only a mediocre showing in his business career, though his
evident honesty secured him promotion to a clerk's position. After his nineteenth year he
seemed to gain again in energy and endurance and was fairly well until his twenty-eighth
year, though he had to nurse his endurance at all times, developed very regular habits of
sleep, diet, etc., and in this manner got along. Once he had an opportunity to join an
organization which would have paid him a better salary, but the hours were irregular, and
it would have demanded much exertion and excitement, so he passed it by.
In 1917 he joined the army, partly because of patriotic motives, partly because he was
convinced that army life might develop his endurance and energy. He was sent to an army
post in the South and within two months of his entrance had "broken down." He
was sleepless, restless, was irritable and "jumpy," had lost appetite and the
feeling of endurance. Life seemed intolerable, though he had no desire to do away with
himself, for he had no quarrel with life itself but was disgusted with his inferiority. He
was hospitalized, but this did little good and he was afterwards discharged as medically
unfit.
This, of course, hurt his pride, but essentially he was greatly relieved. He made but
slow improvement until through the munificence of Uncle Sam he was given a new start in
life through the Vocational Reeducation Board. Like many other city men, he has dreamed of
the "chicken farm" as the ideal occupation free from too much work and yet
lucrative. This, of course, is a mistaken notion, but while learning the work he is happy
and is slowly regaining his energy. What time will bring forth no one can tell, but this
is certain: throughout his life he will have to rely on good habits, carefully adjusted to
his energy, in order to protect himself from the bankruptcy that so easily comes on him. A
philosophy of life which will help to control his irritability is necessary, and the
intelligent of the hypokinetic irritable acquire the habits and the philosophy necessary
for their welfare.
Any neurologist could cite any number of such cases with varying traits of character,
high intelligence or feeble-minded, controlled in morals or uncontrolled, happily or
unhappily situated, whose central difficulty is an irritable and easily exhausted store of
energy. They are easily excited and excitement burns them out; that is the long and short
of their situation. Sex, love, hatred, anger, strain, fear in all its forms, illness,--all
these and many other emotions and happenings may break them down. Such people, and those
who care for them, must not make the mistake of thinking that rough handling, strenuosity,
will cure what is apparently a fixed character.
There is an irritable, high-energy type--irritable hyperkinetic--that is well
contrasted with the foregoing. This explosive personality works by fits and starts but
does not wear out, merely, as it were, settles down to his ordinary pace when he rests up.
He is like a six-day bicycle racer who plugs along but every now and then sprints like mad
for a few laps and then comes back to a pace that would kill the average rider. I shall
not trouble to cite such a case, but I can think of at least one man of good attainments
who is of this explosive hyperkinetic type. He responds to every demand with a burst of
energy, and his quota of ordinary activities is simply appalling.
Neglecting the further types of energy display for the simple reason that this quality
shades off into every conceivable type and is also a part of every nature, we turn to the
types of emotional mood display. With these it is necessary to consider excitability as
well, and the most interesting beings are here our objects of study.
I wish first to emphasize my belief that where there is a great natural variation in
excitability and emotionality in individuals, there is not nearly so much in races as we
think, and that social heredity is tradition and cultural level plays the more important
role in this. My friend and colleague, Dr. A. Warren Stearns, has made a study which shows
that while the immigrant Italian is excitable and quick to anger and of revengeful
reactions, his American-born descendent has so far controlled and changed this type of
reaction that he does not especially figure in police records, in murders or assaults. My
own studies of the second and especially the third generation Jew show there is an almost
complete approach to the "American" type in emotional display, in what is known
as poise. This third generation Jewish-American has dropped all the mannerisms of
excitability in gesture and voice, and his adherence to good form includes that attitude
of nonchalant humor so characteristic of the American.
1. The generally excitable, overemotional type. This type is more common in the Latin,
Hebrew and Celtic races. In some respects it corresponds to the hypokinetic irritable, but
it is not necessarily hypokinetic. The artistic type of person, so called, is of this
group, but is, of course, talented as well. Talent need not be present, and there are
persons of no artistic ability whatever who show a generalized, excitable-emotional
temperament. All young children show the main traits of this type, and there is something
essentially simple about all these folk, no matter how civilized or sophisticated they get
to be.
A. L., a woman of fifty, belongs to this group. She is a Jewess and now a widow. All of
her life her character and temperament have been the same, and though her experiences have
been varied she has not in any essential altered. This last is rather characteristic of
the group, for experience has but little effect on their emotional reactions.
A. L. cries very easily and readily, but her tears are easily dried and her joy is
grotesquely childlike. She is readily frightened, worries without restraint and finds a
melancholy satisfaction in the worst. At the same time, her fears do not persist and are
easily dissipated by encouragement or good fortune. She is readily angered and
"raises a row" with great facility and without restraint. For this reason her
relatives and friends become panic-stricken when she becomes angry, for they know that she
does not hesitate to make an embarrassing scene. In the efforts to conciliate her they are
apt to give her her own way, as a result of which she is the proverbial spoiled child,
capitalizing her weakness.
Our Jewess uses her emotions for effect, which means that she has become theatrical.
Though there is reality in her emotional display, time and the advantages she has gained
have brought enough finish and restraint to her manifestations to gain the designation
artistic. True, it is a crude artistry, for intelligence does not sufficiently guide it,
and her art is used sometimes indiscriminately and inopportunely. As she grows older the
value of her tears is less, and she is becoming that prime nuisance, the elderly scold.
Among the emotional types well recognized by the neurologist is that known as the
cyclothymic. In the individuals of this group there is a periodicity to mood (rather than
to emotions). There is a definitely pathological trend to the cyclothymic, and in its most
marked form one sees the recurring depressions and excitement of Manic Depressive
Insanity.
Aside from these pathological forms, there are persons who show curious periodic
changes in mood. They become depressed for no especial reason, are "blue" for
day after day and then quickly return to their normal. Sometimes these blue spells
alternate with periods of exaltation and happiness, but in my experience this is far less
common than periodic blue spells, a kind of recurrent anhedonia.
L. D. is ordinarily what is known as a vivacious person. Bright, talkative, keen in her
discriminations, she has all her life been at the mercy of strange alterations in mood,
alterations which come and go without what seems to others adequate reason.
As a child L. D. was sick a great deal. She showed an unusual susceptibility to
infection, and it was not until she was nine years of age that she attended school
regularly. Her illnesses made it impossible to discipline her, and so she has always been
a bit "spoiled," though her kind and generous nature makes her a charming
person. But more important than the fact that she could not be disciplined is the lowering
of energy that these sicknesses produced, a lowering marked mainly by a liability to
fatigue and depression.
Let there come a sickness, and this woman's stock of hopeful mood goes and there
results a loss of interest in life, a loss of zest and joyousness.
A digression,--and a return to the theme of the first chapter of this book. The
dependence of the mental life on bodily structure, equally true in the both sexes, is
exquisitely demonstrated in woman. In many women there occurs an extraordinary increase of
sex desire just before the menstrual period and in some to the point where it causes great
internal conflict. Others show moderate depression and even confusion at this time, and to
the majority of women some mood and thought change is taken for granted. At the menopause
mental difficulties to the point of insanity are witnessed, and in some cases the change
is permanent. Back of mood is the entire organic life of the organism, and back of the
nature of our thoughts and deeds is mood.
A peculiarity of fatigue is remarkably well shown by this person. When she is tired or
convalescent a depressing thought sticks, becomes an obsession, a fixed idea, to the
plague of her life. Thus when she was nursing her first baby the night feedings exhausted
her. One night, half asleep and half awake, with the vigorous little animal pulling away
at her breast, she watched the pulsing fontanelle on the top of the baby's head, and the
thought came to her how dreadfully easy it would be to injure the brain beneath. Her heart
pounced in fear, she almost fainted at the thought, and yet it "stuck" and came
back to her with each random association. I need not detail how the idea recurred a dozen
times a day and brought the fear that she was going insane. She stopped nursing the baby
at night, got a good rest, and the idea disappeared. She was "able to shake off"
when rested that which was a hideous obsession when fatigued.
Indeed, one might speak of persons of this type as hypothymic as well as cyclothymic.
The hypothymic are those whose stock of courage and hope is easily exhausted, who become
easily discouraged. They are borrowers of energy and vigor, they need sturdier folk around
them; often they are said to be sensitive, and while this is sometimes true, it is more
often the case that they are more affected. That is, two persons may notice the same thing
or suffer the same sickness, but the so-called sensitive has a reserve of courage and
energy that disappears, whereas the other has enough left in stock so that he does not
feel any change.
The extraordinary complexity of human character is well illustrated by C. D. She is
hypothymic or cyclothymic to the little affairs of life and to the minor illnesses. Yet
when her family fortunes were greatly imperilled by a financial crisis, she stood up
against the strain far better than did her husband, a man sturdy and buoyant in most of
the affairs of life. His ego was more concerned with financial fortune than was hers, and
against this ill she was the philosopher and not he.
