ody should be in a sound and healthy
condition. For much of grief is blunted and relaxed when the body is
permeated by calm, like the sea in fine weather. But if the body get
into a dry and parched condition from a low diet, and gives no proper
nutriment to the soul, but only feeds it with sorrow and grief, as it
were with bitter and injurious exhalations, it cannot easily recover its
tone however people may wish it should. Such is the state of the soul
that has been so ill-treated.

Sec. VII. Moreover, I should not hesitate to assert[199] that the most
formidable peril in connection with this is "the visits of bad
women,"[200] and their chatter, and joint lamentation, all which things
fan the fire of sorrow and aggravate it, and suffer it not to be
extinguished either by others or by itself. I am not ignorant what a
time of it you had lately, when you went to the aid of Theon's sister,
and fought against the women who came on a visit of condolence and
rushed up with lamentation and wailing, adding fuel as it were to her
fire of grief in their simplicity. For when people see their friends'
houses on fire they put it out as quickly and energetically as they can,
but when their souls are on fire they themselves bring fuel. And if
anybody has anything the matter with his eyes they will not let him put
his hands to them, however much he wish, nor do they themselves touch
the inflamed part; but a person in grief sits down and gives himself up
to every chance comer, like a river [that all make use of], to stir up
and aggravate the sore, so that from a little tickling and discomfort it
grows into a great and terrible disease. However, as to all this I know
you will be on your guard.

Sec. VIII. Try also often to carry yourself back in memory to that time
when, this little girl not having been then born, we had nothing to
charge Fortune with, and to compare that time and this together, as if
our circumstances had gone back to what they were then. Otherwise, my
dear wife, we shall seem discontented at the birth of our little
daughter, if we consider our position before her birth as more perfect.
But we ought not to erase from our memory the two years of her life, but
to consider them as a time of pleasure giving us gratification and
enjoyment, and not to deem the shortness of the blessing as a great
evil, nor to be unthankful for what was given us, because Fortune did
not give us a longer tenure as we wished. For ever to be car