any desire for it soon after sleep. This shows the power of repose,
and I would advise anybody who may be in earnest in this matter to be
specially on guard during moments of physical fatigue, and to try the
effect of eating and rest. Do not persist in a blind, obstinate
wrestle. Simply take food, drink water, go to bed, and so conquer not
by brute strength, but by strategy.

Going back to hypochondria and its countless forms of agony, let it be
borne in mind that the first thing to be aimed at is patience--not to
get excited with fears, not to dread the evil which most probably will
never arrive, but to sit down quietly and WAIT. The simpler and less
stimulating the diet, the more likely it is that the sufferer will be
able to watch through the wakeful hours without delirium, and the less
likely is it that the general health will be impaired. Upon this point
of health too much stress cannot be laid. It is difficult for the
victim to believe that his digestion has anything to do with a disease
which seems so purely spiritual, but frequently the misery will break
up and yield, if it do not altogether disappear, by a little attention
to physiology and by a change of air. As time wears on, too, mere
duration will be a relief; for it familiarises with what at first was
strange and insupportable, it shows the groundlessness of fears, and it
enables us to say with each new paroxysm, that we have surmounted one
like it before, and probably a worse.



CHAPTER IV--EDWARD GIBBON MARDON