Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-08-04
Nerves I'm Summer.

From the New York Commercial Advertiser
With the exception OF a few short spells OF IN
tense heat, the present summer has thus far been
more comfortable than Il is the habit OF American
summers TO be. Yet IL has been fiery enough to
cause many men who are not accustomed to the
use OF violent language to waste much OF their
heatness on the desert swear, and especially has
this been the case with those OF US who have the
misfortune 10 be what Is called nervous" which
Is the exact opposite OF what Is meant by the word
"nervy." IL means weakness, and as most people
are more subject to lassitude In summer than In
GUS and those persons who are nervous az AN times
fall to very low ebb during the heated term.
Then they are pretty apt to become great nui-
Sances, both 70 themselves and 10 other people.
Then the grasshopper becomes q burden more
unbearable than the punishment OF Cain, and
curses him from the tip OF his antennm TO the end
Of his TAIL sparing neither wings nor abdomen.
nor membranous spaces. and particularizing with
great vehemence of objurgaton each joint OF that
dodgasted and sheol-bound insects toes the legs
with which he abominably goes headlong -strad-
| he emits the turkey -trodden, blob-nosed, splay-
footed and blear-eyed steam whistle OF q noise
loud enough to wake the dead and stop the town
clock.
And yet the grasshopper is an amiable little
being, whose praises have been sung by Anacreon
| TO curse him save the farmer, and the nervous
man is not farmer. There is nothing out OF the
way with the sweet cicada, who Is seized upon by
| the man OF nerves as proper subject for curses
merely because the nervous man happens 70 see
him.
For this man will, when he is In one OF his tan
| trumS, accuse q stone wall OF being perjurer. a
thief, murderer and liar. II, because OF The un.
evenneSs OF the floor on which 1t stands, table Is
unstable, the victim OF nerves will not hesitate TO
break great walls OF wrath on the ancestors OF the
| table unto the most remote generation which
came into existence In the carboniferous age, and
he viii let ny at the pig-snouted, lopeared Junk
head OF q carpenter VINO built the table as well as
that other beer-bursten, 1diotic villain OF ver-
million dye who laid the 1Oor and built the house
| In the confounded ramshackle modern man
| ner. In ancient Rome and In the Middle Ages
| men knew how to build. They didn't put one end
OF the floor up on the ceiling and the other end on
the mantepiece, one side In the spittoon and the
| other up the chimney as your modern architect
| does. When they put floor down, II stayed put
| without having to be tackled down every nve min
| utes. and you were not obliged to put matches
and ntckels under a tables legs to make 1t stand
straight, and then as soon as you had stopped any
wobbnng and bObbng OF the table, II FOR any
reason II didn't stand steady in those grand old
days, you didn't have big brute beast or crazy
| Italian come around and play hurdy -gurdies and
| accordfons under your window TO drive you mad!
| IL must be-nay, 1t is-a terrible thing 10 be q
man OF nerves In the dog days, or, for the matter
or That, at any time. Let lose OF US who have
no nerves, but who are all brain and Drawn, sound
| the loud timbrel and chant the mighty pecan OF
praise TO kind nature for all that she has done for
| US. But II we have any regard Tor our skin, let
| US not do so In the presence OF the man OF whom
| the poet once wrote:
"A nerve. nerve, q nerve. . nerve,
| o. hain't he got nerve!"