to make him crystallize. A great many mean things are done in the
family for which moods are put forward as the excuse, when the
moods themselves are the most inexcusable things of all. A man or
a woman in tolerable health has no moral right to indulge in an
unpleasant mood, or to depend upon moods for the performance of
the duties of life. If a bad mood come to such persons as these,
it is to be shaken off by a direct effort of the will, under all
circumstances.

There are moods, however, for which men are not responsible, and
the parent of these is sickness--the feeble or inharmonious
movements of the body. When my little boy wakes in the morning,
his smile is as bright as the pencil of sunlight that lies across
his coverlet; but when evening comes, he is peevish and fretful.
The little limbs are weary, and the mood is produced by weariness.
So my friend with a harassing cough is in a melancholy mood, and
my bilious friend is in a severe and savage mood, or in a dark and
gloomy mood, or in a petulant mood, or in a fearful or foreboding
mood. In truth, bile is the prolific mother of moods. The stream
of life flows through the biliary duct. When that is obstructed,
life is obstructed. When the golden tide sets back upon the liver,
it is like backwater under a mill; it stops the driving-wheel.
Bile spoils the peace of families, breaks off friendships, cuts
off man from communion with his Maker, colors whole systems of
theology, transforms brains into putty, and destroys the comfort
of a jaundiced world. The famous Dr. Abernethy had his hobby, as
most famous men have; and this hobby was "blue pill and ipecac,"
which he prescribed for every thing, with the supposition, I
presume, that all disease has its origin in the liver. Most moods,
I am sure, have their birth in the derangements of this important