, 1888-06-06
THE PAINS OF FEAR.
THE EXQUISITE TORTURE ENDURED
BY THE TlMID WOMAN.


Tho Night Has It's Terrors and the Day
Its Dangers-Mothers Who Mako Their
Motherhood n Long Drawn Agony.
Peril Everywhere.
Think what that poor, dear, timid
woman undergoes who nightly looks
under her bed for the burglar she be-
lieves to be secreted there; who goes
round the house after the servants are
abed to see nat all is safe, and that no
ticket-of-leave man is protting by his lib
erty to do her harm. With what a sense
of dread she locks tie doors of those dark,
underground places Into which she dares
not peer. Ghosts and robbers-she turns
the key on both with a quick throb and
trembling hand, hen beats q retreat with
ever the same feeling of nRmeless terror,
the same sensation of being followed by
some vague horror, which she has not the
courage to turn round and confront.
Night after night this torment Is re-
newed. as unfaihngly as that which the
old hag inflicted on the merchant Abudah.
II the night has It's terrors 30 has the
day its dangers. Such a person as this in
the country dies a Thousand deaths In
quick succession; and the one Is as I'M
necessary as the other. A tramp lettering
on the highway means robbery first and
assassination after. A few harmless COWS
going home to be MIXED, and driven by a
chRd, are as dangerous as a stampede of
buffalos, heads down and tails aloft. Cat
tie In a field, however well worn the pub
lie way across, make that field taboo; for
Is not each dull, slow, grazing OK, each
mild eyed milky mother of the herd"
each tangle polled yearhng calf, as dan
gerous as a wild bull, man mad, and to
be approached only with caution and In
forcef That distant, barking collie; that
restless, neighing horse prancing up to
the gap in the hedge, through which he
thrusts his socially inquisitive nose; that
wayside e~ncampment of travelling gypsies
so many causes of fear to the timid pc
destrian. beating along the public road
for a constitutional, and taking no pleas
ure In what she sees.
In a carriage she fares no better. Up
hill she Is sure the horses will lib; down
hill they will slip and fall, or the pole will
break. and then heaven have mercy on
her souli On the plain road, put to a
sharp trot they will run away; indeed,
they are running away. If they whisk
their tails they are about to kick; II they
cock their ears they are sure to shy. She
screams at the smallest difference between
them and their driver; and when they
have to meet another carriage, or pass q
numbering cart, she pinches her compan-
Ion black and blue In the spasm of her
fear.
The torment of fear is hard to bear
when 1t Is conferred on ones self. What
Is 1t when 1t spreads itself abroad and in
cludes others-the beloved-ini its meshesH
For the beloved. indeed, is no security.
Every railway journey includes a smash;
every sea voyage Is n foregone shipwreck;
II an epidemic touches the outside fringes
of the district, 1t is sure to make a leap
Into the home where the lear ones live.
- smallest cold is bronchitis; and when
the little people cough they have whoop-
ing cough, no less.
Some mothers make their motherhood a
cong drawn agony by the fears with which
they encompass their young Is the nurse
a quarter of an hour beyond her usual
timer Straightway the grave Is opened
and the cherished and adored lie therein
stark and cold. Wild wanderings To and
fro, wild surmises as to what can have
happened, angry rejection of any common
place explanation as to q longer walk han
usual, n longer session under the trees
than was calculated on, passionate tears
of frantic despair, passionate outbursts of
rs frantic wrath when lol the nurse
comes quietly up to the house door with
her charge as fresh as a flower and as gay
as a lark, and that voluntary descent into
Hades proves itself as futile as 1t was un-
necessary.
These fears accompany a mother of this
uneasy kind all through life. When her
boys go to school she % sure they will be
mauled by the bigger rufians of their
class, MANNED for life In the playground,
overworked, underfed, put into damp
sheets and morally corrupted. She suffers
more than they from the dire necessities
Of learning, and wishes that there was O
royal road to knowledge where her dar-
tings could bow along at railroad speed,
with never q hill to climb nor a valley
wherein to descend. She thinks the mas
ters cruel and the curriculum inhuman,
and wonders how 80 much can be ex-
pected from such young brains and grow
ing bodies.
All through life 1t is the same cry of
evil. The fortunes of wal take her sons
here and there, and the mother frets over
the possibilities of disaster, as If that pos
sible event were proven fact and chance
had no side alley for escape. And when
1t comes to matrimony the whole thing Ia
renewed undor another name; for surely
was there never the girl born who WINS o
tt wife for the son of such a mother,
while the finest man extant makes but q
poor kind of n care taker for her daugh-
teri 50 b perverts the great gift Of love
and the divine glory of maternity into q
courge, and not a blessing, and weeps
behind her mantle of self-made mourning
because she has not the courage to believe
nor the common sense to hope.-The Fo-
rum.