This exaggeration of trifles is one form of nervous disease.  It would be exceedingly interesting and profitable to study the various phases of nervous disease as exaggerated expressions of perverted character.  They can be traced directly and easily in many cases.  If a woman fusses about trivialities, she fusses more when she is tired.  The more fatigue, the more fussing; and with a persistent tendency to fatigue and fussing it does not take long to work up or down to nervous prostration.  From this form of nervous excitement one never really recovers, except by a hearty acknowledgment of the trivialities as trivialities, when, with growing health, there is a growing sense of true proportion.

I have seen a woman spend more attention, time, and nerve-power on emphasizing the fact that her hands were all stained from the dye on her dress than a normal woman would take for a good hour’s work.  As she grew better, this emphasizing of trivialities decreased, but, of course, might have returned with any over-fatigue, unless it had been recognized, taken at its worth, and simply dropped.  Any one can think of example after example in his own individual experience, when he has suffered unnecessary tortures through the regarding of trifling things, either by himself or by some one near him.  With many, the first instance will probably be to insist, with emphasis and some feeling, that they are not trivialities.

Trivialities have their importance when given their true proportion.  The size of a triviality is often exaggerated as much by neglect as by an undue amount of attention.  When we do what we can to amend an annoyance, and then think no more about it until there appears something further to do, the saving of nervous force is very great.  Yet, so successful have these imps of triviality come to be in their rule of human nature that the trivialities of the past are oftentimes dwelt upon with as much earnestness as if they belonged to the present.

The past itself is a triviality, except in its results.  Yet what an immense screen it is sometimes to any clear understanding or appreciation of the present!  How many of us have listened over and over to the same tale of past annoyances, until we wonder how it can be possible that the constant repetition is not recognized by the narrator!  How many of us have been over and over in our minds past troubles, little and big, so that we have no right whatever to feel impatient when listening to such repetitions by others!  Here again we have, in nervous disease, the extreme of a common trait in humanity.  With increased nervous fatigue there is always an increase of the tendency to repetition.  Best drop it before it gets to the fatigue stage, if possible.

Then again there are the common things of life, such as dressing and undressing, and the numberless every-day duties.  It is possible to distort them to perfect monstrosities by the manner of dwelling upon them.  Taken as a matter of course, they are the very triviality of trivialities, and assume their place without second thought.