wolf, a weasel, or a bull-dog, sucking out our life-blood, draining
our energies, our hopes, our aims, our noble desires, and leaving us
torn, empty, shaken, useless, bloodless, hopeless, and despairing. It
is the nightmare of life that rides us to discomfort, wretchedness,
despair, and to that death-in-life that is no life at all. It is the
vampire that sucks out the good of us and leaves us like the rind of
a squeezed-out orange; it is the cooking-process that extracts and
wastes all the nutritious juices of the meat and leaves nothing but
the useless and tasteless fibre.

Worry is a worse thief than the burglar or highwayman. It goes beyond
the train-wrecker or the vile wretch who used to lure sailing vessels
upon a treacherous shore, in its relentless heartlessness. Once it
begins to control it never releases its hold unless its victim wakes
up to the sure ruin that awaits him and frees himself from its bondage
by making a great, continuous, and successful fight.

It steals the joy of married life, of fatherhood and motherhood; it
destroys social life, club life, business life, and religious life.
It robs a man of friendships and makes his days long, gloomy periods,
instead of rapidly-passing epochs of joy and happiness. It throws
around its victim a chilling atmosphere as does the iceberg, or
the snow bank; it exhales the mists and fogs of wretchedness and
misunderstanding; it chills family happiness, checks friendly
intercourse, and renders the business occupations of life curses
instead of blessings.

Worry manifests itself in a variety of ways. It is protean in its
versatility. It can be physical or mental. The hypochondriac conceives
that everything is going to the "demnition bow-wows." Nothing can