Chapter 18

It is impossible to study the evidence for and against the so-called Christian Science cures without crossing the track of many an incapable doctor. Indeed, there can be no candid criticism of Christian Science methods that does not involve also an arraignment of existing medical methods. It is not difficult to perceive, as one studies the testimonies recorded in the _Christian Science Journal_, that many patients have been driven into Christian Science by a multitude of shifting and mistaken diagnoses, by the gross abuse of drugs, especially of morphine, and by the total neglect of rational psychotherapy on the part of many physicians. No doubt these causes account only for a certain fraction of the desertions to Christian Science. There are many patients who have so little patience and so much credulity that they desert their doctors for no good reason whatever; but I believe that these cases are in the minority, and that the success of the Christian Science movement is due largely to the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of a certain proportion of the medical profession.

I can see some foundation even for such an exaggerated charge as that the doctors "are flooding the world with disease"--a favorite expression of Mrs. Eddy's. No one who has seen much of the nervous or hysterical affections following railway accidents and of the methods not infrequently used, not only by lawyers, but by doctors, to make the sufferers believe that they are sicker than they really are, can deny that there is some truth in Mrs. Eddy's charge. Even in her irrational denunciations of hygiene, one cannot help seeing some grain of truth when one reads or hears of the multitude of petty prudences and "old womanish" superstitions not infrequently exploited by school teachers, parents, and teachers of physical culture, under the name of "hygiene."

_The Classic Methods Used by Christian Science_

Believing, then, as I do, that most Christian Science cures are genuine--genuine cures of functional disease--the question arises whether the special methods of mental healing employed by Christian Scientists differ from other methods of mental healing, such as are employed by the best neurologists, both in this country and in Europe.

Of the classical methods of psychotherapeutics, namely, explanation, education, psychoanalysis, encouragement, suggestion, rest-cure and work-cure, the Christian Scientists use chiefly suggestion, education, and work-cure, though each of these methods is colored and shaped by the peculiar doctrines of the sect.

The quack who sells magic handkerchiefs supposed to be endowed with miraculous healing powers by the touch of his sacred hand, the priests who exploit the "healing springs" at Lourdes, and the doctor who gives a bread pill or a highly diluted homeopathic drug, may cure a patient by what is known as "suggestion," that is, by producing in the patient a strong belief that he will get well. Christian Science suggestion takes the form of "silent treatment" and "absent treatment," in which the patient is influenced by the auto-suggestions of health which the silent pressure of the "practitioner" or the knowledge of the "absent treatment" leads him to make.

Christian Science education consists in the reading of "Science and Health," of the Bible, as interpreted by Mrs. Eddy (after Quimby), and of the teachings received at the hands of Christian Science practitioners. Although there is much that is false and harmful in the education thus received, I believe that a good many warped minds do find in it the corrective twist which they need--just as a certain type of crooked spine may be helped by a violent twist in the other direction.

Work-cure is, I think, the sanest and most helpful part of Christian Science, as of all other types of psychotherapy. The Christian Scientists do set idle people to work and turn inverted attention outward upon the world. This is a great service--the greatest, I think, that can be done to a human being. By setting their patients to the work of healing and teaching others, Christian Scientists have wisely availed themselves of the greatest healing power on earth.

I believe that suggestion, education, and work-cure can be used in far safer and saner ways by physicians, social workers, and teachers or clergymen properly trained for the work than by the Christian Scientists. Heretofore these last have held the field of psychotherapy largely without competition. American physicians have confined themselves mostly to physical and chemical methods (diet, drugs, and surgery), which have a place in the cure of functional disease, but not, I think, the chief place.

Now that scientific psychotherapy is being taken up by physicians, social workers, and educators (including the clergy), not instead of, but in conjunction with physical and chemical treatment, I think it is reasonable to expect that Christian Science will have to stick closer to the truth if it is to hold its ground in competition.

SOUTH STREET

BY FRANCIS E. FALKENBURY

As I came down to the long street by the water, the sea-ships drooped their masts like ladies bowing, Curtseying friendly in a manner olden, Shrouds and sails in silken sunlight flowing, Gleaming and shimmering from silvern into golden, With the sea-winds through the sunlit spaces blowing.

As I came down to South Street by the glimmering, tossing water, the sweet wind blew, oh, softly, sweetly blew O'er the lean, black docks piled high with curious bales, Odorous casks, and bundles, of foreign goods, And all the long ships with their fair, tall sails, Lading the winey air with the spices of alien woods.

As I came down by the winding streets to the wondrous green sea-water, the sounds along the water-front were tuned to fine accord; I heard the racket of the halliards slapping, Along the bare poles stabbing up aloft; I saw loose men, their garments ever flapping, Lounging a-row along each ruined wooden stair: Their untamed faces in the golden sun were soft, But their hard, bright eyes were wild, and in the sun's soft flare Nothing they saw but sounding seas and the crash of ravening wind; Nothing but furious struggle with toil that never would end. The call of mine ancient sea was clamoring through their blood; Ah, they all felt that call, but nothing they understood, As I came down by the winding streets to South Street by the water.

As I came down to South Street by the soft sea-water, I saw long ships, their mast-heads ever bowing: Sweet slender maids in clinging gowns of golden, Curtseying stately in a fashion olden, Bowing sweetly--each a king's fair daughter-- To me, their millionth, millionth lover, I, the seventh son of the old sea-rover, As I came down to South Street by the myriad moving water.

THE INABILITY TO INTERFERE

BY MARY HEATON VORSE

To myself I could be articulate enough about it. Indeed, I held long conversations about it, mainly in the darkness of the night, with my bolder self, who advised me so cleverly and who told me all the tactful things and all the forceful things that I ought on occasion to say. Then there came, with that other self, a conversation which settled things. It went something in this way:

"You have let things go far enough."

"Yes," I admitted guiltily, "I know it."

"It's time you took a stand."

"I know it," I again admitted forlornly.

"Why don't you do it then?" sternly asked the bolder self. He could afford to be bold, it wasn't he who had the talking to do. "Why don't you explain to Felicia the way you feel about it and how it looks and all about it----"

This time it was myself who grew bold. I said:

"You great ass! Do you think I'm going to let you make me make Felicia cry?"

"Better have her cry," grumbled the other self, "than let her expose herself unthinking to--well, all sorts of things." (One would have thought to hear him that Monty Saunders was the measles!)

We were silent a while, and in my imagination I saw again the distressing spectacle of Felicia weeping. I suppose there is no man who has been married a year who has not made his Felicia cry.

You cannot explain how the terrible thing came about. It may be you had a moment of surface impatience. Generally it's something less definite than that--a bit of chaff at an untimely moment, an indiscreet question put forth in a spirit of the friendliest curiosity.

"Why," for instance you may have said, "isn't dinner ready?"

You didn't mind its not being ready in the least, but, not being used to having dinners of your own, you were amused and interested to know the cause of its lateness. And there before your eyes the unbelievable has happened, Felicia is in tears, and it is your fault.

You are like a landsman who has pulled an innocent-looking plug out of the bottom of a boat and sees it fill and founder before his eyes; you feel like a man who lights a match and lo! his house is in flames; with such horror and bewilderment does the sight of a weeping Felicia fill you. Guilt and bewilderment struggle with one another, as her mouth quivers pitifully and her eyes fill with slow tears. She turns away to battle with them, and, instead of holding your tongue, you choose from among all the silly, inadequate things there are in the world to say, "What's the matter, dear?"

"I--I--left--a book in--my room," answers Felicia, and she pushes past you and goes out of the door, and, though you don't know it at the time, she is as bewildered as you are.

You walk up and down the floor two or three times, you open the door and shut it, finally you can't stand it any longer, you must find out how Felicia does. You go up to your room, and there on the bed is what is left of the gallant, saucy Felicia you know. It is a crumpled little heap, and you can see only a knot of disordered hair and shaking shoulders, and as if this wasn't bad enough, there is added the sound of muffled sobs. You go up to her and put a beseeching hand on her shoulder.

"Felicia," you implore. Then from the depths of the pillow come the broken words:

"Go--away--go--away--and--leave--me--alone." Nor is the tone all anguish, anger finds its place there as well, and this bewilders you still more. You could not know, of course, that Felicia is angry at you for having seen her cry.

"I can't go away and leave you like this," you say.

The shoulders shake still harder, the sobs are louder, for sympathy is hard to bear in such moments of humiliation--but this too you find out later.

You walk across the room, helplessly, hopelessly. You murmur forth apologies, though you don't know for what you are apologizing, and words of endearment and of sympathy, though you can't tell what it is you are sympathetic about. You would do anything, abase yourself to any degree, to stop the noise of sobbing which is slowly sapping your manhood.

You stand looking down on poor Felicia--what _is_ the matter with her? What has happened?

"I don't believe you can be well, my darling," you are fool enough to say. Inside you your other self is grumbling:

"Well, I'm hanged if _I_ understand women!"

If only she would stop; she must have been crying ten minutes, and you have aged years. If only you understood why, how much easier it would be! The only thing you do understand is that whatever you say and whatever you do, or whether it's sympathy or silence, it's wrong.

There is a knock on the door.

"Dinner is served," says a voice, and you (feeling like a quitter, but you can't stand the sight of her any longer) say:

"Felicia, I'm going down. I don't seem to be doing you any good----"

Felicia raises her head.

"You're not!" says she spitefully. They're the first words she has spoken since she pleaded with you in agonized tones to "let her be."

Then, as you sit down to the mockery of oysters and soup, anger rises in you. What creatures women are! Hasn't a man a right to ask why dinner isn't ready in his own house without the sky falling? You look at your watch; more than half an hour late. Well, why wasn't it ready? Why? When a man comes home tired from the office, he has a right to expect his dinner to be ready. Yes, by Jove! and a right to ask "Why?" and a right, too, to expect a cheerful, pleasant wife! What struck Felicia, anyway? and in spite of your anger, pity sweeps over you for poor little Felicia crying upstairs, and you rise and go to the door, angry and distressed, while your inner self tells you pity is unmanly. You feel abused and bruised; how scenes take it out of one, you think resentfully, and just here you pause, for there are footsteps on the stairs. It can't be Felicia, you think. But it is Felicia, who comes into the room, beautifully dressed. Why, she must have got up and dressed, tears and all, the instant you left the room! She comes in gallantly, carrying the powder on her nose with effrontery, denying her eyes, which still show the ravages of tears, by the gay smile on her lips; and as dinner progresses, excellent, and with Felicia all as natural and gay as possible, you wonder more than ever what the devil it was all about anyway. But at night, as you ponder it over again, you get a certain blurred vision of what it meant. You are too young in marriage to put it into words, but you have an intuition that marriage, after all, is a very new country for Felicia, full of a thousand details you know nothing about, whose A, B, C she must learn slowly and painfully--and all alone, there is no one to help her. You can't. She's got to grape her way about by herself in this unfamiliar land. All you can do is to be very, very considerate and very, very careful not to make her cry.

But hang it all, if she's going to cry every time you ask if dinner is ready, how are you going to help making her? And all at once the vision of how careful you have got to be makes you feel bowed down with care. You will never, you are sure, speak another natural word in her presence. Who would have believed she would cry so easily? How awful to consider you made her! Then you hear Felicia give a little breath of a sigh, like a child which has sobbed itself to sleep.

"Felicia," you say impulsively, "I was a brute."

"I was a goose," she protests, "an awful little goose," and deep down in your heart you agree with her, though you declare again it was your fault, and you have an uneasy feeling that she is at one with you about your being a brute, and you fall asleep at last thinking that things never again can have the same glamour between you two, that somehow Felicia's tears have cried away the bloom of marriage. But in the morning you wake up and wonder what it was you thought had happened, for nothing has--things haven't changed. You merely resolve that you will try to understand, mere man that you are, the finer creature the Lord has trusted you with. But oh, why can't women be reasonable?

* * * * *

This scene flitted through my mind as the silence fell between my two selves; the other one of me brooded over my inertia in the matter in hand. At last he broke the silence and my awful vision of Felicia in tears with:

"A man ought, you know, to look after his young wife. He shouldn't let her make herself conspicuous with men, especially with a silly young ass. It isn't being jealous," he concluded virtuously.

"Oh, no, we're not jealous," I agreed eagerly.

"You must speak to her."

"I can't."

"Why?" he demanded. And then it came out. Why? It had been staring me in the face all along. I had known why, but I had shirked, as long as I could, putting my confession of weakness into words. If I had never seen Felicia cry, it would have been different. I might have talked to her as man to man, but now:

"I can't, because it's impossible for me to interfere with Felicia."

I told him. There it was. It was constitutionally impossible for me to interfere, in words anyway. It was like a sense lacking, but there where my Felicia-preventing faculties should have been there was a blank.

"Do you mean you would let her do anything?"

"Anything," I assented.

"Let her drift from you and not reach out your hand for her?"

"I couldn't raise my hand," I confessed sadly. There it was. I couldn't do the disagreeable task known as "bringing her to her senses." If Felicia couldn't feel that I didn't like what she did, I couldn't, for the life of me, or even the life of Felicia, open my mouth. And I believe there are a great many men like me in the world, and more women, too. A certain kind of pain makes us dumb. A certain pride freezes back the words that would come. The men of us have perhaps seen our Felicias cry. And there's no use saying afterwards, Why didn't you tell me? What, after all, is the use of words, when it's written all over you in the very set of your coat that you're hurt?

So now it was all settled. There was no use in my lying awake at night any longer while my other self tickled his vanity by making up admonitory conversations with Felicia, that went this way:

"Felicia," I was to say tenderly yet seriously, "I have something I want to talk over with you."

Felicia would be impressed by my manner, and even a little frightened, and she would murmur:

"Yes?" expectantly, meekly.

"Felicia," I was to continue, "I do not want you to think I am blaming you. I am blaming myself for letting things go so far, for not explaining things to you before; you are young, you do not understand the world."

"That is true," Felicia would reply with adorable meekness, as she lifted questioning eyes to mine. Then I was to sit down beside her and taking both her hands in mine:

"Dear," I was to continue, "when a young girl has received as much attention as you have, it is natural for her to imagine that after she is married men can go on courting her as they did before. But this is not true. A man's devotion, especially the devotion of an insolent, useless pup of a young ass like Saunders" (it slipped out in spite of ourselves, and we put the blue pencil through it, supplying "a fellow like Saunders") "has a very different meaning when given to a young girl than to a young married woman. You do not dream this, I know. I have every confidence in you, dear, and I am speaking now purely to save you from an unpleasant scene as well as to stop malicious tongues."

At this Felicia would keep silent, contemplating the abyss pointed out to her. Indeed, my words have so impressed her that my heart smites me, but better she should learn from me than in some other way.

"May a married woman have no friends then?" she cries at last.

"All she likes of _friends_," I am to say with a touch of severity. "But she should take care not to make herself conspicuous with any one man. For you know, Felicia, you have been making yourself conspicuous. At the Jarvis week-end party you talked to no one else; last night you sat an hour in a secluded corner with him. You walk with him, and he sends you violets. I have no feeling about Saunders, of course. I merely see these things as the world sees them. Only I know how innocent you are, that you are accepting these attentions as simply as you would have before you were married, but, O Felicia, the world does not know that! Already they are putting you down as a married flirt; already they are wondering what I am about to let things go on so, and as for Saunders, his attentions to you are an insult."

"You should have told me before," Felicia murmurs. "You should have told me!"

Just then the maid would of course bring a card. Felicia would glance at it, her brows arch themselves with displeasure.

"Tell Mr. Saunders I am not at home," she would say haughtily.

You see, according to that other self, it was all as easy as rolling off a log. The trouble with him is that he has no practical knowledge of the world; but at the moment of telling, he would put the glamour of his ideas over me. It seemed too seductively easy, and it was hard for me to point out to him that, excellent and satisfactory as this conversation was, it had the fatal defect of not being the way Felicia and I talked. This didn't impress him at all; he merely invented another conversation which didn't put Felicia in nearly as pleasing a light, but gave me scope for firmness and dignity. I appeared really very well in the face of her perverseness. Proud of myself, I was to end by saying, without anger, but with decision:

"And, Felicia, if you can find no way of stopping this objectionable young man's attentions, I _can_!"

Now all these pleasant plays of fancy were ended forever by my acknowledging my weakness.

Felicia is fond of saying, "Men differ, but all husbands are alike." I think she believes this to be an epigram. But O, Felicia, all husbands are not alike; there are those who can take care of their wives, and those who can't,--those who can say the word in time, and those who must sit back weakly silent, morosely sucking their paws while their wives burn their fingers.

Well, after all, I thought, perhaps it was better so. There would be negative benefits. This way, at least, I shouldn't make Felicia cry. I wouldn't say anything I should be sorry for afterwards, if I said nothing. I had only to sit pusillanimously quiet until Saunders was guilty of some impertinence, then there would be no more Saunders. I ground my teeth and thanked God I was not jealous.

But I was soon undeceived if I thought that things were going along as they had been. First there came a little, tiny, malformed, wordless doubt, which I strangled as it was born; then a suspicion I wouldn't see. I closed my eyes. In my loyalty I lied even to myself, but my bolder self in his inexorable fashion made me look at it at last.

"Felicia," he asserted, "is keeping something from you. Felicia is unhappy about something."

It was true, I couldn't deny it, I had ever so many proofs:

(1) I had caught Felicia watching me with melancholy, speculative eyes. When I asked her what was the matter, she replied "Nothing."

(2) She had bursts of feverish unnatural gaiety.

(3) She didn't look well.

(4) Several times she started to tell me something, but decided not to.

(5) She had moments of unwonted affection for me, I thought, as if she were trying to make up to me for something.

Then came, more serious and more conclusive than anything else:

(6) I waked up in the night and was sure I heard Felicia crying softly and cautiously. As I moved, the sobs stopped and Felicia feigned a deep sleep.

So for a week a secret walked between us. We put out our hands toward each other, and its invisible presence kept them from meeting. We felt the constraint as of a third person always with us, and that third person was the Secret. We asked mute, unintelligible questions of each other.

A less subtle mind than my own would have put it crudely that things were strained and uncomfortable at home.

Meantime, if the Secret sneaked around us, silent, malignant, invisible, Monty Saunders, for this was his horrid name, was obvious in every way. It seemed to me that his loud laugh rang perpetually through my house, that Felicia was always coming in or going out with him, that wherever we went he was already waiting for us, and that all the time he was engaged in eating up our happiness, Felicia's and mine, as fast as ever he could.

I believe now that his ubiquitousness was partly due to my excited imagination.

This, as I have said, was the situation for one week after I had acknowledged my Constitutional Inability to Interfere--and on the eighth evening Felicia and I were to go to a large studio dance. I dressed with all the groans common, I believe, to the male animal out of temper. I interspersed my dressing with such remarks as:

"Felicia, I wish you would have them change the laundry man, this waistcoat's beastly."