I have seen a woman quibble and talk and
worry about what she believed to be a matter of right and wrong in a
few cents, and then neglect for months to pay a poor man a certain
large amount of money which he had honestly earned, and which she
knew he needed.
The nervous conscience is really no conscience at all. I have seen a
woman worry over what she owed to a certain other woman in the way
of kindness, and go to a great deal of trouble to make her kindness
complete; and then, on the same day, show such hard, unfeeling
cruelty toward another friend that she wounded her deeply, and that
without a regret.
A nervous woman's emotions are constantly side-tracking her away
from the main cause of her difficulty, and so keeping her nervous. A
nervous woman's desire to get her own way--and strained rebellion at
not getting her own way--bedazzles or befogs her brain so that her
nerves twist off into all sorts of emotions which have nothing
whatever to do with the main cause. The woman with the troublesome
relative wants to be considered good and kind and generous. The
woman with the nervous money conscience wants to be considered
upright and just in her dealings with others. All women with various
expressions of nervous conscience want to ease their consciences for
the sake of their own comfort--not in the least for the sake of
doing right.
I write first of the nervous hypocrite because in her case the
nervous strain is deeper in and more difficult to find.
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