Without self-respect, there can be none of that healthy freedom of spirit which animates others to freedom, and exerts that influence which is ascribed to “a good temper,” which removes hesitancy from the transaction of the daily business of life, and so permits life to appear in its natural aspect. Instead of this, where the spirit has lost its security of innocence, unconsciousness, or self-reliance, and become morbidly sensitive to failures and dangers,--where it has become cowardly in conscience, shrinking from all moral enterprise, and dreading moral injury from every occurrence, the temper of anxiety must spread from the sufferer to all about him, whether the causes of his trouble are intelligible to them or not. Moral progress, or even holding what he has gained, seems out of the question for one so shaken; for, constantly feeling, as he does, that he cannot afford to do the least questionable thing, and every act being questionable in one aspect or another, he can only preserve one incessant shrinking attitude before the fearful ghost of Conscience, instead of bestirring himself to prove and use his new opportunities of spiritual exertion and conquest. This abasement may co-exist with the most perfect sweetness and gentleness of speech and manners, and the sufferer may enjoy great credit for not being irritable, when he is in a far lower moral state than often co-exists with irritability. One effect, deplorably mean and perilous, of such a tendency, is immediately opposed to the mood which prompts hasty words and complaints. The sufferer’s spirits rise in proportion to the pain he experiences. He is never so happy as when he feels his paroxysms coming on,--not only because pain of body acts as relief from the gnawing misery of his mind, but because every tangible proof that he is under chastening and discipline, conveys to him a sense of his dignity--reassures him, as a child of Providence. From this may follow too naturally his learning to regard pain as a qualification for ease--as a purchase-money of future good--a superstition as low and depraving as almost any the mind can entertain. To persons in health, and at ease, this detail of the tempers of a sick-room may well appear fanciful, irrational, and shocking enough. But the time may come when they may recognise it as true; and, meanwhile, it will be their wisest and kindest way to receive it with belief. It may possibly prove the key, even now, to a mystery which otherwise they can make nothing of, when they see one under tedious suffering, gentle but low when at ease--evidently borne down by speechless sadness--while, on the first return of pain, the spirits rise, and the more restless is the distressed body, the more at ease does the spirit appear. Such a state may be morbid and perilous; but, the more it is so, the more desirable it becomes that the attending friend should have an insight into the case, and a respectful and tender sympathy with it.