I refer of course to the treatment I have myself seen practised and to the examples quoted here. The system made considerable demands on the goodwill and concurrence of the patient, these being, in the opinion of Count Szápary, indispensable conditions of its success. An entirely different principle is acted upon, I am aware, by those who practise massage at the present day. With them the patient remains entirely passive, and the massage itself is alone supposed to work the cure. I will not enter into the question of the respective merits of the two systems, I would merely point out the benefit that accrued to the patient from the independence to which he was encouraged by the earlier one. All who had sufficient energy to follow the prescribed path, were able in course of time to continue the treatment alone, whilst such as were found incapable of making the necessary effort for recovery, and disposed to fall into a morbid state of dependence on the doctor, were dismissed as a hindrance to the others. Every phase of illness was treated as a stepping-stone to progress, every symptom turned to account; the somnambulistic trance, for instance, was made use of as a stage in the transition from sickness to health, a state of repose deeper and more refreshing than ordinary sleep, during which by no other means than the rest prescribed by nature, the weakened frame and overstrung nerves might recover their equilibrium. Every step in the treatment was accompanied by prayer; it bore indeed from first to last a markedly religious character. All the members of our little circle felt themselves lifted above the common wants and desires of humanity by the nobler prospects which the wider horizon opened out before them; we were as neophytes whom some rite of initiation sets apart for holier purposes. It was difficult to live invariably on that exalted level, the circumstances might not always be propitious, and on myself they seemed sometimes to bear too heavily. It was the sight of so much suffering, the perpetual intercourse with invalids, that preyed on my spirits and against which my own youthful health and strength could at times scarce react. But at such moments my mother’s iron discipline stood me in good stead. I had been so well drilled, and had my feelings under such perfect control, that neither to her nor anyone else, and scarce even to myself would I ever have acknowledged that life had sometimes become a burden to me. I knew that for the sake of others I must keep a smiling face, and do my best to cheer them, whatever my own sadness.