<h2><SPAN name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></SPAN>PREFACE</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">A very</span> wise physician has said that “every illness has two parts—what
it is, and what the patient thinks about it.” What the patient thinks
about it is often more important and more troublesome than the real
disease. What the patient thinks of life, what life means to him is also
of great importance and may be the bar that shuts out all real health
and happiness. The following pages are devoted to certain ideals of life
which I would like to give to my patients, the long-time patients who
have especially fallen to my lot.</p>
<p>They are not all here, the steps to health and happiness. The reader may
even be annoyed and baffled by my indirectness and unwillingness to be
specific. That I cannot help—it is a personal peculiarity; I cannot ask
any one to live by rule, because I do not believe<span class="num" title="Page iv">‌</span><SPAN name="piv" id="piv"></SPAN> that rules are
binding and final. There must be character behind the rule and then the
rule is unnecessary.</p>
<p>All that I have written has doubtless been presented before, in better
ways, by wiser men, but I believe that each writer may expect to find
his small public, his own particular public who can understand and
profit by his teachings, having partly or wholly failed with the others.
For that reason I am encouraged to write upon a subject usually shunned
by medical men, being assured of at least a small company of friendly
readers.</p>
<p>I am grateful to a number of friends and patients who have read the
manuscript of the following chapters. These reviewers have been frank
and kind and very helpful. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Richard C.
Cabot, who has given me much valuable assistance.</p>
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