Confessions of a Neurasthenic

When I became old enough to "take notice" of things, I was fairly deluged with toys: Fuzzy dogs and cats; big, red, yellow and green balls; fancy rattle-boxes, and various other...

Next I must say something about my dietetic ventures. I have at one time and another eaten everything and again eschewed everything in the way of diet, all for the sake of promo...

Morbid fears have been briefly mentioned. It may now be in order for me to chronicle some of the hygienic measures that I have pursued with a view to averting diseases to which...

By this time I was beginning to get tolerably well acquainted with myself. The reader may perhaps think--if he cares enough to think--that I did not enjoy life; but I did in my...

and I am quite sure that no good woman would undertake the shaky job of making me happy "forever and a day." She could never learn what I wanted for breakfast. I never know myse...

Yes, I had thought of something entirely new. I would take a medical course and would then know for myself whether I suffered from a complication of diseases or whether it was t...

Only casual mention has been made for a while concerning my occupations. The reader may imagine that in the pursuit of health I found no time to engage in the usual avocations o...

When I arrived at an age when my character should have been in some measure "moulded," I was, like most persons of a peculiar nervous temperament, very vacillating and changeful...

As the reader may have already surmised, the play mentioned in the preceding chapter was never finished. No; after I was once more domiciled in my city home, I began to think th...

Indecision marked my life and character and I had no confidence in myself. Yet I realized that I had an active brain, only that it was misdirected and running riot. To correct y...

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 aft...

The pursuit of health is like the pursuit of happiness in that you do not always know when you have either. It may furthermore be likened to chasing a will-o'-the-wisp that ever...

The neurasthenic is born and not made to order, but it is only by assiduous cultivation that he can hope to become a finished product. To elucidate the fact presented by the lat...

It should be remembered that I am now a full-fledged neurasthenic, with all the rights and privileges that go with the job. Yes, Webster defines a job as being an undertaking. N...

Next I decided to turn cow-boy, so I at once went toward the setting sun. I would go out West and go galloping over the mesa and acquire the color of a brick-house, with the app...

When I found that I couldn't possibly do nothing--I do not mean this in the ungrammatical sense in which it is so often used--I thought I would be obliged to take up some new ca...

Time passed on--that's about all time does anyway--and my idle habits still clung to me. In fact they grew stronger and faster than I did. My moods and whims were subject to man...

Reader, you have perhaps wondered all along how I could ever hold myself down to write a little sketch of my life. I wonder myself that I have thus been able to jot down twenty...

In writing this sketch it is the endeavor to carry up the different emotions and characteristics of my life in all their phases, as well as to chronicle the vagaries resulting d...