uncommon, and not confined merely to a cold in the head.

We can increase the suffering of friends through "sympathy" given in
the same mistaken way by which we increase our own pain, or keep
ourselves longer than necessary in an uncomfortable illness.






IX.

NERVOUS STRAIN IN THE EMOTIONS





THE most intense suffering which follows a misuse of the nervous
power comes from exaggerated, unnecessary, or sham emotions. We each
have our own emotional microscope, and the strength of its lens
increases in proportion to the supersensitiveness of our nervous
system. If we are a little tired, an emotion which in itself might
hardly be noticed, so slight is the cause and so small the result,
will be magnified many times. If we are very tired, the magnifying
process goes on until often we have made ourselves ill through
various sufferings, all of our own manufacture.

This increase of emotion has not always nervous fatigue as an