A shower-bath is a very excellent thing in its way, when taken at the proper time and under certain conditions; but those two requirements must be carefully considered beforehand, for the human frame is a fabric of very delicate organisation. Any violent change, or hasty interference with the regular and legitimate working of its functions, may throw the whole machine out of gear, just as the sudden quickening of an engine's motions will, probably, cause it to break down or turn it off the line; while, on the other hand, a wholesome tonic, or fillip, judiciously administered when occasion seems to demand it, like our shower-bath, may often better enable it to discharge its duties and go all the more smoothly and easily--as a tiny touch of the oil-can will affect the movements of man's mammoth mechanical contrivances, that are so typical of himself. There are some people, I am aware, who object to the institution in toto, arguing that it hurts the system with its unexpected shock, doing more harm than good. There are others who believe in nothing but shocks, and similar methods of treatment out of the common run; and these "go in" for shower-baths, "a discretion"--though, without discretion, would, perhaps, be a truer description. You may not be informed, also, that the "institution" is frequently used in lunatic asylums and penal establishments as an instrument of torture and correction, being known to operate most efficaciously on obstreperous and hardened criminals, when all other means of coercion have failed. As it is with the shower-bath physically considered, so it is in regard to the moral douche, to bring my apparent digression to a pointed application. Properly taken, it nerves up the cerebral tissues; experienced unawares, at right angles to previous paths of thought and preparation, it reduces the patient to a temporary state of mental coma and bewilderment--as exemplified in my case on the present unhappy occasion. I never felt so completely "flabbergasted," as sailors say, in my life, as when Min's mother came into the room that afternoon, just at the moment when I was meditating a master-stroke against the fortress of my darling's heart. I trembled in my boots. I wished the earth to open and swallow me up!