When mischief is once set up, and an unhappy sufferer falls into the hands of unsympathetic doctors and nurses, her trials increase and multiply. If she be suffering from seeming inactivity, she is reproved, “roused,” and ordered to exert herself; the actual strain on the nerves of monotony, and the need in many cases of absolute repose, being wholly ignored. On the other hand, total inactivity is sometimes prescribed as a remedy for overwork, when restlessness is so great that enforced idleness maddens. The patience to gain the confidence of the sufferer, and the sympathy to understand her ills and their causes, are attributes of the higher order of mind that our sieves so often weed out. The evils of overwork are too well known to need much comment. Those who have to earn their living cannot always avoid excessive fatigue, and they are specially liable to suffer from it if cursed by congenitally feeble organisations. But the strange thing is, that persons not obliged to work hard, and not rendered restless by previous enforced inactivity, should nevertheless deliberately make themselves ill. Nervous exhaustion, however, is extremely insidious. We can draw on our capital for a length of time without being made unpleasantly aware of growing weakness; and though self-destructive tendencies do not usually originate in a healthy, well-organised mind, people of good constitution do sometimes break down in consequence of the physiological ignorance in which they have been reared, or under the stress of a combination of exceptionally untoward circumstances. Sometimes the true cause of the evil is to be found in an exaggerated personal ambition, showing none the less an ill-balanced mind; for, what truly sane person would sacrifice health to such chimeras as wealth and fame? All who have experienced wealth know perfectly well that it means simply an accumulation of bothers and a sense of responsibility; that we cannot, with our best endeavour, spend more than a certain amount upon ourselves, and that the possession of great wealth really means our acceptance of the arduous and thankless task of distributor to other people. The only remaining reward possible to us is the answer of a quiet conscience, and even that, we are aware, depends largely upon the liver, which organ luxury is apt to upset. It is chiefly from the wealthy that the ranks of the pessimists are recruited; and naturally so. For just as perfect health cannot long exist without self-forgetfulness, so all genuine happiness is to be found in working for a worthy object. Happiness of this kind and health of the nervous system go hand in hand;--at least, I have never found a prolonged divorce between the two possible.