If we could believe that they are common, the worst of the fear would
vanish.

But, as a rule, we should be very careful for our own sake not to speak
much about what distresses us. Expression is apt to carry with it
exaggeration, and this exaggerated form becomes henceforth that under
which we represent our miseries to ourselves, so that they are thereby
increased. By reserve, on the other hand, they are diminished, for we
attach less importance to that which it was not worth while to mention.
Secrecy, in fact, may be our salvation.

It is injurious to be always treated as if something were the matter
with us. It is health-giving to be dealt with as if we were healthy,
and the man who imagines his wits are failing becomes stronger and
sounder by being entrusted with a difficult problem than by all the
assurances of a doctor.

They are poor creatures who are always craving for pity. If we are
sick, let us prefer conversation upon any subject rather than upon
ourselves. Let it turn on matters that lie outside the dark chamber,
upon the last new discovery, or the last new idea. So shall we seem
still to be linked to the living world. By perpetually asking for
sympathy an end is put to real friendship. The friend is afraid to
intrude anything which has no direct reference to the patient's
condition lest it should be thought irrelevant. No love even can long
endure without complaint, silent it may be, an invalid who is entirely
self-centred; and what an agony it is to know that we are tended simply
as a duty by those who are nearest to us, and that they will really be
relieved when we have departed! From this torture we may be saved if we
early apprentice ourselves to the art of self-suppression and sternly