will to see the bright side of things, to possess the assurance that
there is a veritable and persisting bright side of things, when the mind
is gloomed by physical weakness and the heart is conscious only of
languor and distress. At such a dull time even a long-established habit
may desert us; with our faculties clouded and obscured we are tempted to
doubt the entire philosophy of our former life; we sink down into the
sheets of discomfort, and roll our heads restlessly on the pillow of
discontent; we almost extract a morbid satisfaction from the fuliginous
surrenderings of pessimism. Mrs. Gummidge at our bedside might be as
unwelcome as Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, or Zophar the
Naamathite; but there is a Widow in the soul of all men as mournful and
lugubrious as the tearful sister of Mr. Peggotty, and in our weakness it
is often this dismal self-comforter we are disposed to summon to our
aid. "My soul is weary of my life," cried Job; "I will leave my
complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul."

Now, there is not a wise doctor in the world, nor any man who truly
knows himself, but will acknowledge and confess the enormous importance
to physical recovery of mental well-being. The thing has become
platitudinous, but remains as difficult as ever. If Christian Science on
its physiological side had been an easy matter it would long ago have
converted the world. The trouble is that obvious things are not always
easy. It is obvious to the victim of alcoholic or nicotine poisoning
that he would be infinitely better in health could he abjure alcohol or
tobacco; he does not need to be philosophised or theologised into this
conviction; he knows it better than his teachers. His necessity is a
superadded force to the will within his soul which has lost the power of
action. And so with the will of the sick person, who knows very well
that if he could rid himself of dejection and heaviness his health would
come back to him on swallows' wings. Obvious, palpable, more certain