But a mind thus disposed, however it may for a time console its sorrows, by retiring from the world, thereby becomes more weak and helpless. Solitude in such cases, increases the disorder, while it softens its effects. To eradicate the seeds of this dreadful malady, the imagination should be impressed with some new, contrary, and more powerful bias than that which sways the mind, which can only be turned from its course of thought by shifting the object of its reflection, and giving entrance to new desires. A melancholy mind therefore, should be weaned by degrees from its disposition to solitude, should be agreeably interrupted in its musings, and be induced to relish the varying pleasures of the world. But, above all, those scenes and subjects which have any connexion, however remotely, with the cause of the complaint, must be cautiously avoided. The seeds of this dreadful malady are, in general, very deeply planted in the constitution of the patient, however accidental the circumstances may be when relieved from its oppression, is, if left to itself, always in danger of relapsing into its former habit. This circumstance alone is sufficient to show how unfriendly solitude must be to the cure of this complaint. If, indeed, the patient be so far gone as to leave no hope of recovery; if his desponding heart be incapable of any new impression; if his mind forgoes all custom of mirth; if he refuse to partake of any healthful exercise or agreeable recreation: and the soul sinks day after day into deeper dejection, and threatens nature with madness or with death, solitude is the only resource. When melancholy seizes, to a certain degree, the mind of an Englishman, it almost uniformly leads him to put a period to his existence; while the worst effect it produces on a Frenchman, is to induce him to turn Carthusian. Such dissimilar effects, proceeding from the operation of the same cause, in different persons, can only be accounted for from the greater opportunities which there is in France than in England to hide the sorrows of the mind from the inspection of the world. An English hypochondriac would, perhaps, seldom destroy himself, if there were in England any monastic institution to which he could fly from the eye of public observation.