"Try it for a day, I beseech you, to preserve yourself in an easy and cheerful frame of mind. Compare the day in which you have rooted out the weed of dissatisfaction with that on which you have allowed it to grow up, and you will find your heart open to every good motive, your life strengthened and your breast armed with a panoply against every trick of fate; truly, you will wonder at your own improvement." RICHTER. Accidie APRIL 7 "As one compares the various estimates of the sin, one can mark three main elements which help to make it what it is--elements which can be distinguished, though in experience, I think, they almost always tend to meet and mingle; they are _gloom_ and _sloth_ and _irritation_." _The Spirit of Discipline_, Bishop PAGET. "You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy." LYDIA MARIA CHILDS. "Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; altogether past calculation its power of endurance." CARLYLE. Accidie APRIL 8 "'It is a mood which severs a man from thoughts of God, and suffers him not to be calm and kindly to his brethren. Sometimes, without any provoking cause, we are suddenly depressed by so great sorrowfulness, that we cannot greet with wonted courtesy the coming even of those who are dear and near to us, and all they say in conversation, however appropriate it may be, we think annoying and unnecessary, and have no pleasant answer for it, because the gall of bitterness fills all the recesses of our soul.' Those who are sad after this fashion have, as St. Gregory says, anger already close to them; for from sadness such as this come forth (as he says in another place) malice, grudging, faint-heartedness, despair, torpor as to that which is commanded, and the straying of the mind after that which is forbidden." _The Spirit of Discipline_, Bishop PAGET. "Activity is the antidote to the depressions that lower our vitality, whether they come from physical or psychical causes." Accidie APRIL 9