dogged, persistent look that, when turned on you, saw not you, but
something beyond you. The head was thrown slightly forward, the eyes
looking up at an angle. This last action was habitual with him. It gave
him a peculiar earnestness. As I noted these peculiarities, my mind was
also with his case; I saw that his life was threatened. Perhaps he
guessed what was going on in me, for he said in a low, cultured voice:
"The wheels will stop too long some time, and there will be no rebound;"
--referring to the irregular action of his heart.

"Perhaps that is true," I said; "yet it depends a good deal upon yourself
when it will be. Men can die if they wish without committing suicide.
Look at the Maori, the Tongan, the Malay. They can also prolong life
(not indefinitely, but in a case like yours considerably), if they
choose. You can lengthen your days if you do not brood on fatal things
--fatal to you; if you do not worry yourself into the grave."

I knew that something of this was platitude, and that counsel to such a
man must be of a more possible cast, if it is to be followed. I was
aware also that, in nine cases out of ten, worry is not a voluntary or
constitutional thing, but springs from some extraneous cause.

He smiled faintly, raised his head a little higher, and said:
"Yes, that's just it, I suppose; but then we do not order our own
constitutions; and I believe, Doctor, that you must kill a nerve before
it ceases to hurt. One doesn't choose to worry, I think, any more than
one chooses to lay bare a nerve." And then his eyes dropped, as if he
thought he had already said too much.

Again I studied him, repeating my definitions in my mind. He was not a
drunkard; he might have had no vice, so free was his face from any sign