GETTING AT THE NERVES

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14925, 24 February 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

GETTING AT THE NERVES

j BY - TOHUNGA,

, Ir J°'V get'at a mail's nerves lie is done, r The Australian cricketers went to pieces i for no apparent reason excepting that they , were demoralised by the discreditable; f squabble with the Board of Control, and> i by the personal bickerings of leading . players; Gray, the billiard-player, as evi- . dently went to pieces through worrying » about his law-suit with Roberts, and thus- » lost badly to Stevenson, whom he had pre- ; viously beaten easily. These incidents are r only illustrative of the universal experience in life, that when a man's nerves i are sound he is at his best, that when , they are tuned to concert-pitch he is superhuman, that when they are broken i he is done. ' The simple Maori tried to get. at his. enemy's nerves by making hideous faces, appalling noises, and ferocious capers, as is the habit of simple savages in all times and clime«. The slimmer Boer "sniped" for much the same purpose. The riflefiring of modern armies— us© up a. thousand or two cartridges for every casualtyseems to bo on the same line. In any case, instead of scoffing at the Maori tactics we might fairly recognise that they wore based upon the sound primitive instinct that if you can disconcert an enemy ho is already beaten, and that- if you can put heart into your friends they have a good chance to win. What is true of the cricket field, of the billiard-room, of the battle-field, is true of every walk in life. An architect cannot do good work when he is nervous, nor a student effectively deal with an examination paper, nor a horseman handlo a refractory horse. Engine-drivers and motor-men with nerves out of gear do the right- thing a moment too late; states-, men let the wrong "word slip over their tongues: captains fail to do what they know they should do; timber-fellers let the axe slip; seamen jump short-; builders lose their balance. Thus a general loses battles, newspapers slip into libel, cooks spoil the broth. These wonderful nerves of ours are the key to every situation. While we are their masters things go smoothly, but when they get out of control nobody knows what may happen. This is altogether understandable if one realises tho automatic instantaneousness with which every human faculty must work together in order to attain a difficult end. The cricketer's eye and hand must not only be as one, but extraordinarily delicate variations of batting must be instantly determined upon, and accurately executed. The slightest hesitation may be fatal. Every cricketer will understand how the squabbles of the Australian cricketing world have affected the team which confidently expected victory, just as he will understand how the hearty comradeship of the Englishmen has assisted in that perfecting of "nerve" which has enabled the Englishmen to make the most of their opportunity. Every billiardplayer can appreciate how Gray's hand would suffer from the mental worry of the Hoberts law-suit. • When the "nerves" are at their best, J men are sublimely unconscious of effort., From the brain flashes stored knowledge, and the student is gratifyingly amazed at his own answers to abtruse examination questions. Brain and hand work in perfect sympathy, and the motor-driver evades seemingly certain-death, the helmsman holds his boat on a seemingly impossible course, the rifleman cannot do anything but make bull's-eyes, the batsman plays with the deadliest bowling unitl sheer physical exhaustion reducn his exaltation. In genius we see the perfected mechanism by which the design of the brain, the conception of how to do and the power to do are united in one har- I monious whole, and we have the wonderful painter, the great sculptor, the supreme playwright, the incomparable organiser of industry, the born statesman, the master of nations, the captains whoso fleets make history and whose armies give new shape to the political world. j It is all a question of nervesnot that nerves are everything, but that without nerves nothing is possible. And the moral —for there is a moral to be drawn from, everything under the | sun—that the training of nerves to be '• fit" is the most valuable part of ordinary . education, just as the keeping of the nerves " fit* 'is the most desirable thing in ordinary life. Which goes without saying, provided that in this and in tho drawing of all other morals you say ordinary" and know what is means. For ! there is. of course, something more in life j than merely being " fit." • and something more in" education than merely getting

"fit." Probably, no sailor who came alive out of Trafalgar was ever as sound-nerved as he was before, and certainly the Iron Duke was never the same after Waterloo. Does anybody imagine that Grace Darling was as steady-thoughted after those long hours of battling with the sea for men's lives, or that Florence Nightingale would have faced as placidly'as before the thought of another Scutari ? Yet it would be absurd to judge of Trafalgar and Waterloo bv their effects on the nerves, or to think" that Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale had lost because they had learned what "nerves" meant. '• Nerves," like bodies and brains, are surftly given us to stake, and to lose on great occasions. Without them we cannot live to the fullest, but if we treasure them above all other things we do not live at ail. If we let little, petty things get on our nerves we have no effective energy left for the great things, that is the essence ofl the moral. If we worry over miserable squabbles we cannot "play cricket;'' if we lie awake grizzling over law-suits we come nerve-shaken to the billiard-table; if we pull a horse about when there is no need he will probably put us into the fence when wo want him to jump. Sooner or later all nerves must break, the strongest must grow feeble, the most beautiful be haggard, the warmest heart be cold; to break nerves on the things that , matter, to exhaust-strength in the great adventures, to live while wo may to the j fullest, is better than to boast in our | dotage of never having done the things we j ought not to have done or left undone the j things we ought to have done. ' That, however, is a phase of the nerve | question we nerd never worry over. For ] one man who chokes himself in a gargan- j tuan gorge there are a million who de- j stroy themselves by overeating a little three times dailv. For one who racks his soul out in some glowing aspiration there are a thousand whose nerves are in tatters because of peevish habits. -And it is ! sound enough to sav that if we want to be happy and successful we should never worry over anything, but should treat all ; looming trouble as' we would treat the I fearful" yells of savages advancing with j slings and arrows against machine guns, j For looming troubles, like thunder clouds, rarely break over us, and when they do j I hey "still more rarely wet us to the skin. ( The truth is that all our worrying I and most of our physical nerve-rackings : are the effect of the savage within us. not vet attuned to civilised thinking. The j higher the race the less it worries, the j more easily it endures strain, the more j certainlv it acts upon its determinations. •' Nerve's" have indeed developed with civilisation, both in their use and in their abuse, in their joys and in their terrors. The ideal of "cricket" is to make the, most of a losing game, to play to the j utmost against overpowering odds, to be i as sure of stioke and as cool of thought | in the course of defeat as in the onrush ] to victory. And so it is in all the affairs i of Life'' The perfect man is master of his nerves whatever .happenonly, unfortunately, none of us are perfect men, but all are very', very human., i