THE

UNTROUBLED MIND

BY

HERBERT J. HALL, M.D.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HERBERT J. HALL

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published May 1915_

PREFACE

A very wise physician has said that "every illness has two parts--what it is, and what the patient thinks about it." What the patient thinks about it is often more important and more troublesome than the real disease. What the patient thinks of life, what life means to him is also of great importance and may be the bar that shuts out all real health and happiness. The following pages are devoted to certain ideals of life which I would like to give to my patients, the long-time patients who have especially fallen to my lot.

They are not all here, the steps to health and happiness. The reader may even be annoyed and baffled by my indirectness and unwillingness to be specific. That I cannot help--it is a personal peculiarity; I cannot ask any one to live by rule, because I do not believe that rules are binding and final. There must be character behind the rule and then the rule is unnecessary.

All that I have written has doubtless been presented before, in better ways, by wiser men, but I believe that each writer may expect to find his small public, his own particular public who can understand and profit by his teachings, having partly or wholly failed with the others. For that reason I am encouraged to write upon a subject usually shunned by medical men, being assured of at least a small company of friendly readers.

I am grateful to a number of friends and patients who have read the manuscript of the following chapters. These reviewers have been frank and kind and very helpful. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Richard C. Cabot, who has given me much valuable assistance.

CONTENTS

I. THE UNTROUBLED MIND 1

II. RELIGIO MEDICI 10

III. THOUGHT AND WORK 20

IV. IDLENESS 30

V. RULES OF THE GAME 38

VI. THE NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT 50

VII. SELF-CONTROL 59

VIII. THE LIGHTER TOUCH 65

IX. REGRETS AND FOREBODINGS 73

X. THE VIRTUES 81

XI. THE CURE BY FAITH 88

I

THE UNTROUBLED MIND

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? MACBETH.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: The Untroubled Mind by Herbert J. Hall
• 2: That idea of worry and conscience
• 3: Above the warfare of conscience and worry
• 4: Often enough we cannot promise a cure
• 5: What is this final justification
• 6: Because he knows nothing of medicine
• 7: Because when a man has overworked
• 8: Instead of becoming a nervous invalid as he might have done
• 9: Especially when idleness means dependence
• 10: The idleness of disability often means pain
• 11: Whether our transgression is a mistake or not
• 12: However inconsequential the habit of indecision may seem
• 13: Then we may possess the untroubled mind
• 14: Surely here was bliss for the sensitive soul
• 15: She falls outside the beaten path of charity
• 16: Beethoven was of a sour temper
• 17: We had better say to the worriers
• 18: We repress our lighter selves sternly
• 19: Though he may be a very lovable person
• 20: Instead of going into further analysis with him
• 21: If patience can be spontaneous
• 22: By the constant practice of virtues
• 23: If it cannot cure actual physical disease