Suffering is always either constructive or destructive of character. It is constructive when the personal reaction suffices to lessen and make it bearable. It is destructive whenever there is a looking for sympathy or a leaning on some one else. Character counts in withstanding disease, and even in the midst of epidemics, according to many well-grounded traditions, those who are afraid contract the disease sooner than others and usually suffer more severely. Sympathy must not be allowed to produce any such effect as this. {69} CHAPTER V SELF-PITY "The will dotes that is attributive To what infectiously itself affects." _Troilus and Cressida_. The worst brake on the will to be well is undoubtedly the habit that some people have of pitying themselves and feeling that they are eminently deserving of the pity of others because of the trials, real or supposed, which they have to undergo. Instead of realizing how much better off they are than the great majority of people--for most of the typical self-pitiers are not real subjects for pity--they keep looking at those whom they fondly suppose to be happier than themselves and then proceed to get into a mood of commiseration with themselves because of their ill health--real or imaginary--or uncomfortable surroundings. Just as soon as men or women assume this state of mind, it becomes extremely difficult for them to stand any real {70} trials that appear, and above all, it becomes even more difficult for them to react properly against the affections of one kind or another that are almost sure to come. Self-pity is ever a serious hamperer of resistive vitality. A great many things in modern life have distinctly encouraged this practice of self-pity and conscious commiseration of one's state until it has become almost a commonplace of modern life for those who feel that they are suffering, especially if they belong to what may be called the sophisticated classes. We have become extremely sensitive as a consequence about contact with suffering. Editors of magazines and readers for publishing houses often refuse in our time to accept stories that have unhappy endings, because people do not care to read them, it is said. The story may have some suffering in it and even severe hardships, especially if these can be used for purposes of dramatic climax, but by the end of the story everything must have turned out "just lovely", and it must be understood that suffering is only a passing matter and merely a somewhat unpleasant prelude to inevitable happiness.