THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS"
Preliminary to our discussion of the nervousness of the housewife we
must take up without great regard to details the subject of nervousness
in general.
Nervousness, like many another word of common speech, has no place
whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicating an abnormal condition
is so loosely used as this one.
People say a man is nervous when they mean he is subject to attacks of
anger, an emotional state. Likewise he is nervous when he is a victim of
fear, a state literally the opposite of the first. Or, if he is
restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting
his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the
ground of his nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who
branded his baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A
"nervous breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of
the sinister faces of insanity itself.
It should be made clear that what we are dealing with in the nervous
housewife is not a special form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the
general types found in single women and also in men. It differs in the
intensity of symptoms, in the way they group themselves, and in the
causes.
Physicians use the term psychoneuroses to include a group of nervous
disorders of so-called functional nature. That is to say, there is no
alteration that can be found in the brain, the spinal cord, or any part
of the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such
diseases as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage,
etc., because there are marked changes in the structure in the latter
troubles. One might compare the psychoneuroses to a watch which needed
oiling or cleaning, or merely a winding up,--as against one in which a
vital part was broken.
The most important of the psychoneuroses, in so far as the housewife is
concerned, is the condition called neurasthenia, although two other
diseases, psychasthenia and hysteria, are of importance.
It is interesting that neurasthenia is considered by many physicians as
a disease of modern times. Indeed, it was first described in 1869 by the
eminent neurologist Beard, who thought it was entirely caused by the
stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every
part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an
accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it is
probably as old as mankind; but there exists no reasonable doubt that
modern life, with its hurry, its tensions, its widespread and ever
present excitement, has increased the proportion of people involved.
Particularly the increase in the size and number of the cities, as
compared with the country, is a great factor in the spread of
neurasthenia. Then, too, the introduction of so-called time-saving,
_i.e._ distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone,
telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to
increase the number of things done, seen, and heard. The busy man with
his telephone close at hand may be saving time on each transaction, but
by enormously increasing the number of his transactions he is not saving
_himself_.
The keynote of neurasthenia is _increased liability to fatigue_. The
tired feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising
than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should
remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his
day to get going; and at night, when he should have the delicious
drowsiness of bedtime, he is wide-awake and disinclined to go to bed or
sleep. This fatigue enters into all functions of the mind and body.
Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and
this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words
as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a
listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more
distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with
over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild
kind, a liability to worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for
the things formerly held dearest. And finally the fatigue is often
marked by a lack of control over the emotional expression, so that anger
blazes forth more easily over trifles, and the tears come upon even a
slight vexation. _To be neurasthenic is to magnify the pins and pricks
of life into calamities, and to be the victim of an abnormal state that
is neither health nor disease._
The more purely physical symptoms constitute almost everything
imaginable.
1. Pains and aches of all kinds stand out prominently; headache,
backache, pains in the shoulders and arms, pains in the feet and legs,
pains that flit here and there, dull weary pains, disagreeable feelings
rather than true pains. These pains are frequently related to
disagreeable experiences and thoughts, but it is probable that fatigue
plays the principal part in evoking them.
2. Changes in the appetite, in the condition of the stomach and bowels,
are prominent. Loss of appetite is complained of, or more often a
capricious appetite, vanishing quickly, or else too easily satisfied.
The capriciousness of appetite is undoubtedly emotional, for
disagreeable emotions, such as worry, fear, vexation, have long been
known as the chief enemies of appetite.
With this change of appetite goes a host of disorders manifested by
"belching", "sour stomach", "logy feelings", etc. What is back of these
lay terms is that the tone, movement, and secreting activity of the
stomach is impaired in neurasthenia. When we consider later on the
nature of emotion, we shall find these changes to be part of the
disorder of emotion.
3. So, too, there is constipation. In how far the constipation is
primary and in how far it is secondary is a question. At any rate, once
it is established, it interferes with all the functions of the organism
by its interference with the mood.
The following story of Voltaire bluntly illustrates a fact of widespread
knowledge. Voltaire and an Englishman, after an intimate philosophical
discussion, decided that the aches and pains of life outnumbered the
agreeable sensations, and that to live was to endure unhappiness.
Therefore, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named
the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared
with a revolver ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be
seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he
found him seated before a table groaning with the good things of life
and reading a naughty novel with an expression of utmost enjoyment. Said
the Englishman to Voltaire, "This was the day upon which we were to
commit suicide." "Ah, yes," said Voltaire, "so we were, but to-day my
bowels moved well."
4. The disturbed sleep, either as insomnia or an unrestful,
dream-disturbed slumber, is a distressing symptom. For we look to the
bed as a refuge from our troubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded
our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary
functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is disturbed, so is work,
and with that our purposes are threatened. So disturbed sleep has not
only its bodily effects but has its marked results on our happiness.
5. Fundamental in the symptoms of neurasthenia is fear. This fear takes
two main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general,
that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health
and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has
even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is
almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the
possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a
symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability
to worry becomes greatly increased.
Second, there is a special form of worry called by the old authors
hypochondriacism, which essentially is fear about one's own health. The
hypochondriac magnifies every flutter of his heart into heart disease,
every stitch in his side into pleurisy, every cough into tuberculosis,
every pain in the abdomen into cancer of the stomach, every headache
into the possibility of brain tumor or insanity. He turns his gaze
inward upon himself, and by so doing becomes aware of a host of
sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant
for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily
processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the
little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the
gastro-intestinal tract have no essential meaning in the majority of
cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they
multiply extraordinarily in number and intensity. One of the cardinal
groups of symptoms in a neurasthenic is this fear of serious bodily
disease for which he seeks examination and advice constantly. Naturally
enough, he becomes the choicest prey for the charlatan, the faker, or
perhaps ranks second to the victim of venereal or sexual disease. The
faker usually assures him that he has the disorders he fears and then
proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous course of
treatment.
What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia. Back
of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in
relation to the housewife,--matters like innate temperament, bad
training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for
sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook,
over-æsthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy,
passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and
doubt; matters like recent illness, childbirth, poverty, overwork,
wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc.
Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deënergization. By this is meant that
either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after
a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of
energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some
thought, some life situation of a depressing kind.
It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our
subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over
the wider field of the human being.
The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the
building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is
digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into
the tissues,--and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion.
The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the
human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other
words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our
later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of
our hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our
love-making, the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought
battles of any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and
achievement.
Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as in
tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition
there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,--that create vigor
and strength of body and mind. Joy rouses the spirit; one dances,
laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work
with zeal and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the
battle, a zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a
stimulus of great power and enlarges the scope of the personality. The
feeling that comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a
new birth of purpose and will. And whatever arouses the fighting spirit,
which in the last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end.
There are _deënergizing emotions and experiences_ as well, things that
suddenly rob the victim of strength and purpose. Fear of a certain type
is one of these things, as when one's knees knock together, the limbs
become as it were without the control of the will, the heart flutters,
and the voice is hoarse and weak. Fear of sickness, fear of death,
either for one's self or some beloved one, may completely deënergize the
strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the
frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and
injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and
inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,--the mistaken
marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental
pride. The profoundest deënergization of life may come from a failure of
interest in one's work, a boredom due to monotony, a dropping out of
enthusiasm from the mere failure of new stimuli, as occurs with
loneliness. Any or all of these factors may bring about a neurasthenic,
deënergized state with lowering of the functions of mind and body. We
shall discover how this comes about farther on.
What part does a subconscious personality take in all this and in
further symptoms? Is there a subconsciousness, and what is it?
In answer, the majority of modern psychologists and psychopathologists
affirm the existence of a subconscious personality. One needs only
mention James, Janet, Ribot, McDougall, Freud, Prince, out of a host of
writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we now deal with a
new fashion in mental science, this can be affirmed--that every human
being is a pot boiling with desires, passions, lusts, wishes, purposes,
ideas, and emotions, some of which he clearly recognizes and clearly
admits, and some of which he does not clearly recognize and which he
would deny.
These desires, passions, purposes, etc., are not in harmony one with
another; they are often irreconcilable and one has to be smothered for
the sake of the other. Thus a sex feeling that is not legitimate, an
illicit forbidden love has to be conquered for the sake of the purpose
to be religious or good, or the desire to be respected. So one may
struggle against a hatred for a person whom one should love,--a husband,
a wife, an invalid parent, or child whose care is a burden, and one
refuses to recognize that there is such a struggle. So one may seek to
suppress jealousy, envy of the nearest and dearest; soul-stirring,
forbidden passions; secret revolt against morality and law which may
(and often do) rage in the most puritanical breast.
In the theory of the subconscious these undesired thoughts, feelings,
passions, wishes, are repressed and pushed into the innermost recesses
of the being, out of the light of the conscious personality, but
nevertheless acting on the personality, distorting it, wearying it.
However this may be, there is struggle, conflict in every human breast
and especially difficult and undecided struggles in the case of the
neurasthenic. Literally, secretly or otherwise, he is a house divided
against himself, deënergized by fear, disgust, revolt, and conflict.
And the housewife we are trying to understand is particularly such a
creature, with a host of deënergizing influences playing on her,
buffeting her. Our aim will be to analyze these influences and to
discover how they work.
I have stated that in medical practice two other types are
described,--psychasthenia and hysteria. These are not so definitely
related to the happenings of life as to the inborn disposition of the
patient. Nor are they quite so common in the housewife as the
neurasthenic, deënergized state. However, they are usually of more
serious nature, and as such merit a description.
By the term psychasthenia is understood a group of conditions in which
the bodily symptoms, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite,
etc., are either not so marked as in neurasthenia, or else are
overshadowed by other, more distinctly mental symptoms.
These mental symptoms are of three main types. There is a tendency to
recurring fears,--fears of open places, fears of closed places, fear of
leaving home, of being alone, fear of eating or sleeping, fear of dirt,
so that the victim is impelled continually to wash the hands, fear of
disease--especially such as syphilis--and a host of other fears, all of
which are recognized as unreasonable, against which the victim struggles
but vainly. Sometimes the fear is nameless, vague, undifferentiated, and
comes on like a cloud with rapid heartbeat, faint feelings, and a sense
of impending death. Sometimes the fear is related to something that has
actually happened, as, fear of anything hot after a sunstroke; or fear
of any vehicle after an automobile accident.
There is also a tendency to obsessive ideas and doubts; that is, ideas
and doubts that persist in coming against the will of the patient, such
as the obscene word or phrase that continually obtrudes itself on a
chaste woman, or the doubt whether one has shut the door or properly
turned off the gas. Of course, everybody has such obsessions and doubts
occasionally, but to be psychasthenic about it is to have them
continually and to have them obtrude themselves into every action. In
extreme psychasthenia the difficulty of "making up the mind", of
deciding, becomes so great that a person may suffer agonies of internal
debate about crossing the street, putting on his clothes, eating his
meals, doing his work, about every detail of his coming, going, doing,
and thinking. A restless anxiety results, a fear of insanity, an
inefficiency, and an incapacity for sustained effort that results in the
name that is often applied,--"anxiety neurosis."
Third, there is a group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd
impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every crack, to touch
the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time.
The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick
that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic
adult, to the odd grimaces and facial contortions, blinking eyes and
cracking joints of the inveterate _ticquer_. Against some of these habit
spasms, comparable to severe stammering, all measures are in vain, for
there seems to be a queer pleasure in these acts against which the will
of the patient is powerless.
Especially do the first two described types of trouble follow
exhaustion, acute illness, sudden fright, and long painful ordeal. The
ground is prepared for these conditions, _e.g._ by the strain of long
attendance on a sick husband or child. Then, suddenly one day, comes a
queer fear or a faint dizzy feeling which awakens great alarm, is
brooded upon, wondered at, and its return feared. This fearful
expectation really makes the return inevitable, and then the disease
starts. If the patient would seek competent advice at this stage,
recovery would usually be prompt. Instead, there is a long unsuccessful
struggle, with each defeat tending to make the fear or anxiety or
obsession habitual. Sometimes, perhaps in most cases, and in all cases
according to Freud and his followers, there is a long-hidden series of
causes behind the symptoms; subconscious sexual conflicts and
repressions, etc. It may be stated here that the present author is not
at all a Freudian and believes that the causes of these forms of
nervousness are simpler, more related to the big obvious factors in
life, than to the curiously complicated and bizarrely sexual Freudian
factors. People get tired, disgusted, apprehensive; they hate where they
should love; love where they should hate; are jealous unreasonably; are
bored, tortured by monotony; have their hopes, purposes, and desires
frustrated and blocked; fear death and old age, however brave a face
they may wear; want happiness and achievement, and some break, one way
or another, according to their emotional and intellectual resistance.
These and other causes are the great factors of the conditions we have
been considering.
Of all the forms of nervousness proper, the psychoneuroses, hysteria is
probably the one having its source mainly in the character of the
patient. That is to say, outward happenings play a part which is
secondary to the personality defect. Hysteria is one of the oldest of
diseases and has probably played a very important rôle in the history of
man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria,
for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of
religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in
their healing power. Nothing is so spectacular as when the hysterical
blind see, the hysterical dumb talk, the hysterical cripple throws away
his crutches and walks. In every age and in every country, in every
faith, there have been the equivalents of Lourdes and St. Anne de
Beaupré.
In hysteria four important groups of symptoms occur in the housewife as
well as in her single sisters and brothers.
There is first of all an emotional instability, with a tendency to
prolonged and freakish manifestations,--the well-known hysterics with
laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics
is this instability, this emotionality, which is however secondary to
an egotistic, easily wounded nature, craving sympathy and respect and
often unable legitimately to earn them.
A group of symptoms that seem hard to explain are the so-called
paralyses. These paralyses may affect almost any part, may come in a
moment and go as suddenly, or last for years. They may concern arm, leg,
face, hands, feet, speech, etc. They seem very severe, but are due to
worry, to misdirected ideas and emotions and not at all to injury to the
nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call
"dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions,
ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and
a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any
energizing influence like good fortune, the compelling personality of a
physician or clergyman or healer (the miracle cure), or a serious
danger. The latter is exemplified in the cases now and then reported of
people who have not been out of bed for years, but are aroused by threat
of some danger, like a fire, reach safety, and thereafter are well.
Similar in type to the paralyses are losses of sensation in various
parts of the body,--losses so complete that one may thrust a needle deep
into the flesh without pain to the patient. In the days of witch-hunting
the witch-hunters would test the women suspected with a pin, and if they
found places where pain was not felt, considered they had proof of
witchcraft or diabolic possession, so that many a hysteric was hanged or
drowned. The history of man is full of psychopathic characters and
happenings; insane men have changed the course of human events by their
ideas and delusions, and on the other hand society has continually
mistaken the insane and the nervously afflicted for criminals or
wretches deserving severest punishment.
Especially striking in hysteria are the curious changes in consciousness
that take place. These range from what seem to be fainting spells to
long trances lasting perhaps for months, in which animation is
apparently suspended and the body seems on the brink of death. In olden
days the Delphian oracles were people who had the power voluntarily of
throwing themselves into these hysteric states and their vague
statements were taken to be heaven-inspired. To-day, their descendants
in hysteria are the crystal gazers, the mediums, the automatic writers
that by a mixture of hysteria and faking deceive the simple and
credulous.
For, in the last analysis, all hysterics are deceivers both of
themselves and of others. Their symptoms, real enough at bottom, are
theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall later show, they are
weapons, used to gain an end, which is the whim or will of the patient.
In order to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now
consider in more detail certain phases of emotion.
Fear curdles the blood, anger floods the body with passion, sorrow
flexes the proud head to earth and stifles the heartbeat; joy opens the
floodgates of strength, and hope lifts up the head and braces man's
soul.
Man is said to be a rational being, but his thought is directed mainly
against the problems of nature, much more rarely against _his own_
problems. It is for emotion that we live, for emotion in the wide sense
of pleasure and pride. What guides us in our conduct is desire, and
desire in the last analysis is based on the instincts and the allied
emotions,--hunger, sex, property, competition, coöperation. The
intelligence guides the instincts and governs the emotions, but in the
case of the vast majority of mankind is swept out of the field when any
great decision is to be made.
We are accustomed to thinking of emotion as a thing purely
psychical,--purely of the mind, despite the fact that all the great
descriptions and all the homely sayings portray it as bodily. "My heart
thumped like a steam engine," or "I could not catch my breath"; "a cold
chill played up and down my back"; "I swallowed hard, because my mouth
was so dry I could not speak." And the Bible repeatedly says of the man
stricken by fear, "His bowels turned to water," with a graphic force
only equaled by its truth.
William James, nearly simultaneously with Lange, pointed out that
emotion cannot be separated from its physical concomitants and maintain
its identity. That is, if we separate in our minds the weak, chilly
feeling, the dry mouth, the racing heart, the sharp, harsh breathing,
and the tension of the muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling
of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or
anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,--immediately the
jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench
and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in
what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe.
Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over
you a feeling not unlike anger.
In a famous paragraph James essentially states that instead of crying
because we are sorry, it is fully as likely that we are sorry because we
cry. So with every emotion; we are afraid because we run away, and happy
because we dance and shout. In other words he reversed the order of
things as the everyday person would see it; makes primary and of
fundamental importance the physical response rather than the feeling
itself.
This has been widely disagreed with, and is not at all an acceptable
theory in its entirety. Yet modern physiology has shown that emotion is
largely a physical matter, largely a thing of blood vessels, heartbeat,
lungs, glands, and digestive organs. This physical foundation of emotion
is a very important matter in our study of the housewife as of every
other living person. For it is especially in the emotional disturbance
that the origin of much of nervousness is to be found, and that on what
may be called the physical basis of emotion.
What can emotion produce that is pathological, detrimental to
well-being? We may start with the grossest, simplest manifestations. It
may entirely upset digestion, as in the vomiting of disgust and
excitement. Or, in lesser measure, it may completely destroy the
appetite, as occurs when a disturbing emotion arises at mealtime. This
is probably brought about by the checking of the gastric secretions.
(Cannon's work; Pavlow's work.)
It may check the secretion of milk in the nursing mother, or it may
change the quality of the milk so that it almost poisons the infant. It
may cause the bladder and bowels to be evacuated, or it may prevent
their evacuation.
It may so change the supply of blood in the body as to leave the head
without sufficient quantity and thus bring about a fainting spell;
_i.e._ may absolutely deprive the victim of consciousness. In lesser
degree it causes the blush, a visible manifestation of emotion often
very distressing.
It may completely abolish sex power in the male, or it may bring about
sex manifestations which the victim would almost rather die than show.
It may completely deënergize so that neither interest, enthusiasm, or
power remains. This is a familiar effect of sorrow but occurs in lesser
degree with the form of fear called worry.
The fact is that emotion is an intense bodily response to a situation
which when perceived is the state of feeling. This intense bodily
response, involving the very minutest tissues of the body, may increase
the available energy, may help the bodily functioning, may stimulate the
"psychical" processes, but also it may deënergize to an extraordinary
degree, it may interfere with every function, including thought and
action. It may surely produce acute illness, and it may, though rarely,
produce death.
Moreover, it is extraordinarily contagious. Every one knows how a hearty
laugh spreads, and how quick the response to a smile. Indeed, emotion
has probably for one of its main functions the producing of an effect
on some one else, and all the world uses emotion for this purpose. Anger
is used to produce fear, sorrow to evoke sympathy, fear is to bring
about relenting, a smile and laughter, friendliness, except where one
smiles or laughs _at_ some one, and then its design is to bring sorrow,
anger, or pain. The leader maintains a hopeful, joyous demeanor so that
his followers may also be joyous or hopeful and thus be energized to
their best. Morale is the state of emotion of a group; it is raised when
joyous, energizing emotions are set working in the group and is lowered
when pessimistic deënergizing emotions become dominant. A city or a
nation becomes energized with good news and success and deënergized when
the battle seems lost.
The spread of emotion from person to person by sympathetic feeling or
the reverse (as when we get depressed because our enemy is happy) is a
social fact of incalculable importance. The problem of the nervous
housewife is a problem of society because she gives her mood over to her
family or else intensely dissatisfies its members so that the home ties
are greatly weakened.
This spread of emotion was happily portrayed by a motion picture I
recently saw. Old Grouchy Moneybags, wealthy beyond measure and
afflicted with gout, is seated at his breakfast table. In the next room,
seen with the all-seeing eye of the movie, the butler makes love to the
very willing maid. In the kitchen the fat cook is feeding the ever
hungry butcher's boy with gingerbread and cake, and on the back steps
the household cat is purring gently in contentment. Happiness is the
predominant note.
Then Old Moneybags savagely rings the bell. Enters the butler,
obsequious and solicitous. "The coffee is bad, the toast is vile,
everything is wrong. You are a _deleted deleted deleted deleted_
rascal." Exit the butler, outwardly humble, inwardly a raging flood of
anger, and he meets the maid, who archly invites his attentions. She
gets them, only they are in the form of an angry shove and an oath.
White with indignation, she stamps her foot and runs into the kitchen,
bursting into tears. The cook, solicitous, receives a slap in the face,
and as the maid bounces out, the cook, seeking a victim, grabs away the
gingerbread from the butcher's boy. And that still hungry juvenile
slams the door as he leaves and kicks the slumbering cat off the back
doorstep.
Unfortunately the film did not show what the outraged cat did. Possibly
it started a devastation that reached back into Moneybags' career; at
any rate the unusual little picture (which later went on to the usual
happy ending) showed how emotion spreads through the world, just as
disease does. The infection that starts in the hovel finally strikes
down the rich man's child, enthroned in the palace. The mood engendered
by the humiliation of poverty or cruelty or any injustice finally shakes
a king off his throne.
So when we trace the deënergizing emotions of the housewife, we are
tracing factors that affect her husband, his work, and Society at large;
we trace the things that mold her children, and thus we follow her mood,
her emotion, into the future, into history.