that they are so whimsical; one never knows when to expect their
assaults; the temptation is to think that they attack one when it is
most inconvenient; but this is not quite the case. They spare one when
one expects discomfort; and again when one feels perfectly secure, they
leap upon one from their lair. The one secret of dealing with the
malady is to think of it as a definite ailment, not to regard the
attacks as the vagaries of a healthy mind, but as the symptoms of an
unhealthy one. So much of these obsessions appears to be purely mental;
one finds oneself the prey of a perfectly causeless depression, which
involves everything in its shadow. As soon as one realises that this is
not the result of the reflections that seem to cause it, but that one
is, so to speak, merely looking at normal conditions through coloured
glasses, it is a great help. But the perennial difficulty is to know
whether one needs repose and inaction, or whether one requires the
stimulus of work and activity. Sometimes an unexpected call on one's
faculties will encourage and gladden one; sometimes it will leave one
unstrung and limp. A definite illness is always with one, more or less;
but in nervous ailments, one has interludes of perfect and even buoyant
health, which delude one into hoping that the demon has gone out.

It is a very elaborate form of torture anyhow; and I confess that I
find it difficult to discern where its educative effect comes in,
because it makes one shrink from effort, it makes one timid,
indecisive, suspicious. It seems to encourage all the weaknesses and
meannesses of the spirit; and, worst of all, it centres one's thoughts
upon oneself. Perhaps it enlarges one's sympathy for all secret
sufferers; and it makes me grateful for the fact that I have had so
little ill-health in my life. Yet I find myself, too, testing with some
curiosity the breezy maxims of optimists. A cheerful writer says
somewhere: "Will not the future be the better and the richer for
memories of past pleasure? So surely must the sane man feel." Well, he
must be very sane indeed. It takes a very burly philosopher to think of
the future as being enriched by past gladness, when one seems to have
forfeited it, and when one is by no means certain of getting it back.
One feels bitterly how little one appreciated it at the time; and to
rejoice in reflecting how much past happiness stands to one's credit,
is a very dispassionate attitude. I think Dante was nea