MARCH 31--APRIL 1 "There is a temperament called _Hypochondriac_, to which many persons, some of them the brightest, the most interesting, the most gifted, are born heirs,--a want of balance of the nervous powers, which tends constantly to periods of high excitement and of consequent depression,--an unfortunate inheritance for the possessor, though accompanied often with the greatest talents.... "People of this temperament are subject to fits of gloom and despondency, of nervous irritability and suffering, which darken the aspect of the whole world to them, which present lying reports of their friends, of themselves, of the circumstances of their life, and of all with which they have to do. "Now the highest philosophy for persons thus afflicted is to understand themselves and their tendencies, to know that these fits of gloom and depression are just as much a form of disease as a fever or a toothache,--to know that it 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 recognises 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." _Little Foxes_, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. "Comfort's Art" APRIL 2 "It would be very petty of us who are well and can bear things, to think much of small offences from those who carry a weight of trial." GEORGE ELIOT. "Trouble is so hard to bear, is it not? How can we live and think that any one has trouble--piercing trouble--and we could help them and never try?"