LIVING WITHOUT A DOCTOR WHEN POSSIBLE.—It seems to me that a sick man lives more carelessly when he is under medical observation than when he attends to his own health. In the first case it suffices for him to obey strictly all his Doctor’s prescriptions; but in the second case he gives more attention to the ultimate object of these prescriptions, namely, his health; he observes much more, and submits himself to a more severe discipline than the directions of his physician would compel him to do. All rules have this effect: they distract our attention from the fundamental aim of the rule, and make us more thoughtless. But to what heights of immoderation and destruction would men have risen if ever they had completely and honestly left everything to the Godhead as to their physician, and acted in accordance with the words “as God will”! 323. THE DARKENING OF THE HEAVENS.—Do you know the vengeance of those timid people who behave in society just as if they had stolen their limbs? The vengeance of the humble, Christian-like souls who just manage to slink quietly through the world? The vengeance of those who always judge hastily, and are as hastily said to be in the wrong? The vengeance of all classes of drunkards, for whom the morning is always the most miserable part of the day? and also of all kinds of invalids and sick and depressed people who have no longer the courage to become healthy? The number of these petty vengeful people, and, even more, the number of their petty acts of revenge, is incalculable. The air around us is continually whizzing with the discharged arrows of their malignity, so that the sun and the sky of their lives become darkened thereby,—and, alas! not only theirs, but more often ours and other men’s: and this is worse than the frequent wounds which they make on our skins and hearts. Do we not occasionally deny the existence of the sun and sky merely because we have not seen them for so long?—Well then, solitude! because of this, solitude! 324. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ACTOR.—It is the blissful illusion of all great actors to imagine that the historical personages whom they are representing were really in the same state of mind as they themselves are when interpreting them—but in this they are very much mistaken. Their powers of imitation and divination, which they would fain exhibit as a clairvoyant faculty, penetrate only far enough to explain gestures, accent, and looks, and in general anything exterior: that is, they can grasp the shadow of the soul of a great hero, statesman, or warrior, or of an ambitious, jealous, or desperate person—they penetrate fairly near to the soul, but they never reach the inmost spirit of the man they are imitating.