Nerves and Common Sense — Themes and Context

Habit as the Root of Nervous Strain

In the first chapter, Call establishes a causal chain: habits create nervous strain, strain leads to breakdown, and recovery requires “intelligent understanding” rather than mere rest. She insists that “when there is no organic trouble” the cause is always character—inherited or acquired. This framing is central to her method: she will not discuss medical treatments but instead target the “pernicious habits” that readers can change. The language is moralistic but practical, urging readers to face “shame” as a healthy step. Notably, she avoids clinical jargon, using phrases like “mess of a fog” to describe denial. The chapter sets up a pattern: identify a common behavior, label it as harmful, and promise a remedy in later pages.

The Anti-Milk-and-Cream Lady and Food Contractions

A later excerpt introduces a woman who “was at work every day over-emphasizing her milk-and-cream contractions.” Call argues that mental contractions against a disliked food—like cauliflower—can disrupt digestion of other foods, because “the contraction of the stomach at one form of food will interfere with the good digestion of another.” She illustrates with the actor Edwin Booth, who ate a dinner that normally would have disagreed with him simply because his hosts assured him it was safe. The anecdote is used to prove that “it is really not so much the food which makes the trouble as the attitude we take toward it.” Call extends this to colds, claiming “more than half the colds that women have are caused principally by wrong eating.” The reasoning is associative rather than scientific, relying on everyday observation.

Voice and Structure: Direct Address and Repetition

Call’s prose is marked by direct address and rhetorical questions. She writes as if speaking to a single reader, often using “we” to create solidarity: “We cannot hold one contraction without having its influence draw us into many others.” The chapters are short, with titles that mimic complaints (“Why Does Mrs. Smith Get on My Nerves?”) or commands (“Don’t Talk”). This structure suggests the book can be dipped into, not read straight through. The excerpts show a preference for concrete examples—the woman who contracts against milk, the dinner party, the grandmother looking for spectacles—over abstract theory. Call’s method is to name a problem, illustrate it with a vignette, and then prescribe a mental exercise, such as “dropping the contraction” through conscious will.

Limitations of the Excerpts: What We Cannot Know

The provided excerpts cover only the opening and a middle section on food. We see no chapters on “Irritable Husbands,” “Telephones and Telephoning,” or “How to Sew Easily.” Call’s claim that all nervous illness stems from character defects is stated early, but we cannot verify whether she maintains this absolutism throughout. The Edwin Booth story is the only extended narrative; we lack evidence of how she handles more severe cases or whether she acknowledges medical treatments. The excerpts also omit her later chapters on “Positive and Negative Effort” and “A Summing Up,” so the overall arc of her argument remains unclear. Readers should treat the early chapters as a strong thesis that may be qualified or expanded later.

Call’s book rewards readers who approach it as a series of independent essays rather than a systematic treatise. The excerpts suggest that her core technique—identifying a mental “contraction” and using will to release it—is applied to diverse situations, from food aversions to social irritations. First-time readers may find it useful to start with a chapter that matches a personal concern, then test Call’s method against their own experience. The book’s value lies less in its medical accuracy than in its vivid, prescriptive voice and its insistence on personal responsibility.

Reading Annie Payson Call’s calm insistence that our nerves obey our habits, I found myself oddly transported to an old notebook on Treatment of the diseases of the eye, by means of prussic acid vapour, and other medicinal agents — Reading Notes. Both share a quiet faith that precise, almost fussy remedies—a vapour, a corrected posture—could soothe what feels like a stubborn mystery. Just a lingering sense of that era’s gentle certainty.