we have been
free from; and let me tell you, that every misery I miss is a new
blessing."

The hypochondriac who nurses his spleen never looks forward cheerfully,
but lounges in his invalid chair, and croaks like a raven, foreboding
woe. "Ah," says he, "you will never succeed; these things always fail."

The Thug of India, whose prayer is a homicide, and whose offering is the
body of a victim, is melancholy.

The Fijiian, waiting to smash the skull of a victim, and to prepare a
bakola for his gods, is gloomy as fear and death.

The melancholy of the Eastern Jews after their black fast, and the
ill-temper of monks and nuns after their Fridays and Wednesdays, is very
observable; it is the recompense which a proud nature takes out of the
world for its selfish sacrifice. Melancholia is the black bile which the
Greeks presumed overran and pervaded the bodies of such persons; and
fasting does undoubtedly produce this.

"I once talked with a Rosicrucian about the Great Secret," said Addison.
"He talked of it as a spirit that lived in an emerald, and converted
everything that was near it to the highest perfection. 'It gives lustre
to the sun,' said he, 'and water to the diamond. It irradiates every
metal, and enriches lead with the property of gold. It brightens smoke
into flame, flame into light, and light into glory. A single ray
dissipates pain and care from the person on whom it falls.' Then I found
his great secret was Content."

My crown is in my heart, not on my head:
Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is called content:
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.
--SHAKESPEARE.

Yet, with a heart that's ever kind,
A gentle spirit gay,
You've spring perennial in your mind,
And round you make a May.
--THACKERAY.

CHAPTER XXIII.

HOLD UP YOUR HEAD.

Thoroughly to believe in one's own self, so one's self were
thorough, were to do great things.
--TENNYSON.

If there be a faith that can remove mountains, it is faith in
one's own power.
--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.

Let no one discourage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest,
the greatest quality of true manliness.
--KOSSUTH.

It needs a divine man to exhibit anything divine. * * * Trust
thyself; every breast vibrates to that iron string. Accept the
place that divine Providence has found for you, the society o