is the peculiarity of the disease to fill the mind with
wretched illusions, to make them seem miserable and unlovely to
themselves, to make their nearest friends seem unjust and unkind, to
make all events appear to be going wrong and tending to destruction and
ruin.

The evils and burdens of such a temperament are half removed when a man
once knows that he has it and recognizes it for a disease, when he does
not trust himself to speak and act in those bitter hours as if there
were any truth in what he thinks and feels and sees. He who has not
attained to this wisdom overwhelms his friends and his family with the
waters of bitterness; he stings with unjust accusations, and makes his
fireside dreadful with fancies which are real to him, but false as the
ravings of fever.

A sensible person, thus diseased, who has found out what ails him, will
shut his mouth resolutely, not to give utterance to the dark thoughts
that infest his soul.

A lady of great brilliancy and wit, who was subject to these periods,
once said to me, "My dear Sir, there are times when I know I am
possessed of the Devil, and then I never let myself speak." And so this
wise woman carried her burden about with her in a determined, cheerful
reticence, leaving always the impression of a cheery, kindly temper,
when, if she had spoken out a tithe of what she thought and felt in her
morbid hours, she would have driven all her friends from her, and made
others as miserable as she was herself. She was a sunbeam, a life-giving
presence in every family, by the power of self-knowledge and
self-control.

Such victories as this are the victories of real saints.

But if the victim of these glooms is once tempted to lift their heavy
load by the use of _any stimulus whatever_, he or she is a lost man or
woman. It is from this sad class more than any other that the vast army
of drunkards and opium-eaters is recruited. The hypochondriacs belong to
the class so well described by that brilliant specimen of them, Dr.
Johnson,--those who can practise ABSTINENCE, but not TEMPERANCE. They
cannot, they will not be moderate. Whatever stimulant they take for
relief will create an uncontrollable appetite, a burning passion. The
temperament itself lies in the direction of insanity. It needs the most
healthful, careful, even regime and management to keep it within the
bounds of soundness; but the introduction of stimulants deepens its
gloom almost to madness.

All parents, in