HKB
TRIES A RETIRED LIFE; IS ALSO AN INVESTIGATOR OF NEW THOUGHT, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION, ETC.
Having now decided upon a retired life in earnest, I had nothing to do but to look after my health and enjoy myself as best I could. I would settle down and have a good time after a genteel fashion and, as the poet says: "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." I would cultivate the little niceties and amenities that go to embellish and round out one's life and character. I would add a few touches to enhance my personal charms. I would manicure my nails; iron out my "crow feet"; bleach out my freckles; keep my hair softened up with hirsute remedies, and my mustache waxed out at the proper angle. Whenever I appeared in society I did not mean to take a back seat or be a wall-flower, realizing that bachelors of my age and standing were very popular in a social way. However, I did not intend to get entangled in the meshes of love again, remembering the Genevieve-Eleanor-Josephine affairs. No wedding bells for me!
Yes, I would take life easy and I was always thinking, "next week I shall go to work enjoying myself." But time slipped along and somehow I could not get started in on the road to happiness. As I had nothing else to do I could not understand why I should not be supremely happy. But I found it hard work doing nothing; I could not enjoy myself at it.
Again I began to grow introspective and melancholy, and soon had a return of all my symptoms of old. They all came trooping in to pay me a visit for the sake of auld lang syne. How should I treat them? To get rid of unwelcome visitors often requires study and tact. I had tried about all the "health and hygiene" rules that had ever been invented. But while this was true, I take a certain degree of pride in saying that among all the absurd measures to which I have resorted, I never made a practice of taking dopes and cure-alls. There are depths to which a self-respecting neurasthenic will not stoop. One of these is taking patent medicines and nostrums. Whenever an individual has descended so low that he imbibes these things, he has gotten out of our class and has become a common, every-day fiend. No, the neurasthenic is no commonplace fellow. He may undergo a useless operation for appendicitis, but he will not swill down dirty dopes. His office is high-toned and esthetic. Perhaps that is the main reason why he is so often reluctant to give it up and be cured. He may display morbid fears and fancies that border on lunacy, and he may do some freakish and atrocious things, but for all that he is usually a man of good points and perhaps superior attainments. Our cult is respectable and made up of gentlemen who seldom defile their mouths or stomachs with tobacco, cigarettes, impure words or patent medicine.