alternatives carefully and only makes his decisions on well-thought-out
grounds, after sufficient reasoned reflection to make sure that he will
have no cause for future regret.

We have already remarked that such forms of irresolution constituted a
martyrdom. The word is by no means too strong. They are never-ending
occasions for physical and moral torture.

They are to be met with in the most trivial details of every-day life.

The mere crossing of a street becomes, for the nervous man, an
ever-recurring source of torment.

He is afraid to go forward at the proper moment, takes one step ahead
and another back, looks despairingly at the line of vehicles that bars
his way, and, when a momentary opening in this confronts him, takes so
long to make up his mind that the opportunity of crossing is past before
he has seized it.

Or again he may suddenly rush forward, without any regard for the danger
to which he is exposed, hesitating suddenly when in the way of the
vehicles that threaten him, and quite incapable of slipping past them,
or of any quick or dexterous movement by which he may avoid them.

This little picture, despite its commonplace nature, is nevertheless a
symbol.

In the crossings of life, as well as those of the streets, the man who
is timid is at an immense disadvantage when compared with the man of
poise.