Of course it is possible to become so hardened that you "eat your
dinner" from a want of feeling, and to be consumed only with
sympathy for yourself; but it is an easy matter to make the
distinction between a strong, wholesome sympathy and selfish want of
feeling, and easier to distinguish between the sham sympathy and the
real. The first causes you to lose nervous strength, the second
gives you new power for wholesome use to others.
In all the various forms of nervous strain, which we study to avoid,
let us realize and turn from false sympathy as one to be especially
and entirely shunned.
Sham emotions are, of course, always misdirected force; but it is
not unusual to see a woman suffering from nervous prostration caused
by nervous power lying idle. This form of invalidism comes to women
who have not enough to fill their lives in necessary interest and
work, and have not thought of turning or been willing to turn their
attention to some needed charity or work for others. A woman in this
state is like a steam-engine with the fire in full blast, and the
boiler shaking with the power of steam not allowed to escape in
motive force.
A somewhat unusual example of this is a young woman who had been
brought up as a nervous invalid, had been through nervous
prostration once, and was about preparing for another attack, when
she began to work for a better control of her nervous force.
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