develop into that great power for use and healthful sympathy which
always belongs to a woman of fine feeling.

There is a term used in college which describes most expressively an
intense nervous excitement and want of control,--namely, "dry
drunk." It has often seemed to me that sham emotions are a woman's
form of getting drunk, and nervous prostration is its delirium
tremens. Not the least of the suffering caused by emotional
excitement comes from mistaken sympathy with others. Certain people
seem to live on the principle that if a friend is in a swamp, it is
necessary to plunge in with him; and that if the other man is up to
his waist, the sympathizer shows his friendliness by allowing the
mud to come up to his neck. Whereas, it is evident that the deeper
my friend is immersed in a swamp, the more sure I must be to keep on
firm ground that I may help him out; and sometimes I cannot even
give my hand, but must use a long pole, the more surely to relieve
him from danger. It is the same with a mental or moral swamp, or
most of all with a nervous swamp, and yet so little do people
appreciate the use of this long pole that if I do not cry when my
friend cries, moan when my friend moans, and persistently refuse to
plunge into the same grief that I may be of more real use in helping
him out of it, I am accused by my friend and my friend's friend of
coldness and want of sympathy. People have been known to refuse the
other end of your pole because you will not leave it and come into
the swamp with them.

It is easy to see why this mistaken sympathy is the cause of great
unnecessary nervous strain. The head nurse of a hospital in one of
our large cities was interrupted while at dinner by the deep
interest taken by the other nurses in seeing an accident case