of being thought hypochondriacal and fear of facing facts; shrinking from the exertion involved in the effort to become healthy and from the pain involved in witnessing the possible distress and anxiety of friends should the complaint prove serious—­regardless of the fact that its neglect and resultant incurability would cause infinitely more distress; above all, that mental egotism which breeds in its victim an unreadiness to acknowledge that he does not know what may be wrong and to take prompt steps to remedy his ignorance.

It is not fair, of course, to attach too much blame to the patient.  Such faults as those cited above are in themselves symptoms of nervous disease.  Body and mind act and react upon one another.  Nevertheless, the practice of the virtues loses its meaning when there is no pull in the opposite direction.—­[EDS.]

 IMAGINATION IN INSURANCE.

Regular readers will recognise in this article a continuation of the series previously entitled “Healthy Brains.”  The author of “The Children All Day Long” is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as on physical fitness.

 It is an unpleasant subject, but have you ever faced the fact that
 your widow might be left in poverty?

We all know the phrases that come so glibly from the lips of the insurance agent.  Perhaps the very fact that it pays companies to spend thousands a year on the salaries of agents, and other thousands on broadcast eye-catching advertisements, shows that there are many things which our imagination only accepts “against the grain.”  Fire, storm, loss by theft or burglary, sickness, disablement and death we do not, by choice, dwell on these things in thought.

Now some people are inclined to pet this impulse of turning away.  “Do not think dark thoughts,” they tell us, “the best insurance is unconsciousness, insouciance, denial.  Misfortune will pass you by if you do not look for it.”

Perhaps there is something to be said for this method when it comes with absolute spontaneity from the innermost nature.  But if for the radiant apprehension of beauty and health we substitute an effort to cling to the picture of good when our very bodies and nerves are warning us with suggestions of evil, we run grave risks.  By adopting someone else’s sense of freedom from danger and repressing our own conviction that for us a certain danger, more or less remote, exists, we are putting great pressure upon ourselves.  At times of ill-health or accidental worry, a sleepless night may bring us an agonising succession of imaginative pictures, those very pictures which we have attempted to banish from our daily life.  If we have still greater power of repression these grim images, forbidden throughout