Acuteness

“ Five or six of them have become known even to writers in the newspapers, and we all copy them from each other.
Rochefoucauld says that a man may be too dull to be duped by a very clever person. He himself was so clever that he was often duped, first by the general honest dulness of mankind, and then by his own acuteness. ”

“ When he speaks only his eyes and eyebrows smile as it is generally with the ironical. At such moments there is no hatred or malice in his eyes but a great deal of acuteness and that peculiar fox-cunning which you can catch only in very observant people. Further, about his eyes I have noticed one more peculiarity. When he takes his glass from Katy, or listens to her remarks, or follows her with a glance as she goes out of the room for a little while, then I catch in his look something humble, prayerful, pure.... ”

“ I believe that one reason for your not quite understanding my illness is, that you, if you have seen long and great sickness at all, which is doubtful, have seen it with an utter prostration of the mind and the spirits,—that your women are languid and querulous, and never dream of bearing up against bodily evils by an effort of the mind. ”

“ While watching the progress of my malady, seeing day by day the advancing steps of the disease that never sleeps, I recognise in myself a strange adaptation in my mind and feelings to the more developed condition of my illness. ”

“ Hence it is that the diagnosis of injury and disease in the extremes oflife is beset by especial difficulties, since the entire body is as silent as are the brain, the pericardium, the mediastinum, and other symptomless areas. For the same reason, when a patient who is seriously ill with a painful disease turns upon the physician a glowing eye and an eager face, and remarks how comfortable he feels, then the end is near. ”

“ At the dawn of the Nineteenth Century, to examine a sick person's pulse, to inspect his tongue, to observe his breathing, to interrogate his skin by our sense of touch, and to try to make his statements and those of his friends fit in with some tenable theory of the nature of his ailment, were about all we could do. ”

“ Thy sickness, they say, and thy puny habit, require that thou do this or avoid that, but know that thy life is a flitting state, a tent for a night, and do thou, sick or well, finish that stint. Thou art sick, but shall not be worse, and the universe, which holds thee dear, shall be the better. ”

“ Medical men, and especially "mad doctors," could tell us much of the great value of a certain relative proportion of pleasurable and painful impressions upon health, and how frequently some unfortunate position, an absence of pleasure, or too much of painful impression, is the cause of serious illness. ”

“ There is something in severe illness, especially if it be in violent contrast to the usual strength of the body, which has often the most salutary effect upon the mind; which often, by the affliction of the frame, roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the heart! ”

“ For a long time I have known that my sickness was like your own—the sickness that no doctor can cure. Through the long nights, when others slept, I have sat alone under the stars, and the voices of the darkness have taught me many things. ”

“ Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. ”

“ Will the theory of physical disease account for the instantaneous plunging of a man or woman into the deepest anguish who, scarce ten seconds before, were in the enjoyment of perfect health of spirit, soul and body? ”

“ The relaxed and debilitated body and nerves are at once rebraced, restored, enlivened, and built up. The mental and physical symptoms of all disease vanish together under its influence—the stooping trembling victim of depression or debility becomes a new man ”

“ To suffer from intelligence in such an atmosphere as this is a disease—the silent sickness—of which such symptoms as the lips tight bound, the heart heavy, and an aching void behind the eyes, are common to all its victims. ”

“ Now it is evident that the higher the principle the disorder of which causes the disorder in the humors, the graver is the sickness: thus a sickness which comes on the human body from the heart, which is the principle of life, or from some neighboring part, is more dangerous. ”

“ It is true, some who have enjoyed uninterrupted health and have felt none of these, may make light of them, and wonder that sickness or pain of body, should bring heaviness upon the mind. And perhaps, one in a thousand is of so peculiar a constitution, as not to feel pain, like other men. ”

“ The most painful experiments may be made by placing the hands upon the temples and face, so as to cover the regions of Sensibility, Disease, Relaxation, and Irritability—the effect of which would be to produce bodily weakness, sickness, pain, distress and general prostration; a condition, which if not relieved, might result in severe disease, but which may be counteracted by dispersing the excitement upward and backward, and by stimulating Health, Energy and Hardihood. ”

“ Any of you who have had much to do with one stricken with a sore disease, who knows he never can be well again, know that it is not the sickness, the physical weakness and pain that make the problem and the tragedy. ”

“ And the pain grows, expands,—fills all the skull,—forces you to cry out, replaces all other sensations except a weak consciousness, vanishing and recurring, that you are very sick, more sick than ever before in all your life. ”

“ By infirmity is meant disease accompanied by weakness; and by disease is meant a fond imagining of something that seems desirable. And as in the body there are tendencies to certain maladies such as colds and diarrhoea, so it is with the soul, there are tendencies like enviousness, pitifulness, quarrelsomeness, and the like. ”

“ The power of mind over body for the relief of symptoms has been recognized, not only by physicians, but by the generality of men at all times. Every one has had experiences of aches, or actual pains, or discomfort quite annoying while one is alone, but that disappear while in pleasant company or occupied in some absorbing occupation. ”

“ If we consider our mental condition as regards sensation at any moment, we notice numerous sensations more or less definite, not referred directly to the surface, nor to external objects, such as a feeling of general comfort, free or im peded breathing, hunger, thirst, malaise, horror, fatigue, and pain. ”

“ What man, in his so-called prime, fails to note his coming scenery—the bandaged varicosities, the braces, the cut bunions, the scarification and bloodless horn, the smells and tastes of himself, the thickening spectacles, the hearing aids, the pills and petit prostheses, the gouty overpall, the migraine and vertigo, rheum, sour burp, dyspnoeia, heart-kick, cracking, and the myriad painful impediments of urination, defecation, respiration, transpiration, the organic wheeze, the gradual invasion of death? ”

“ The operation of any other power, substituted in place of the natural one, even upon a body perfectly organized, produces a state very different from health;76 commonly attended with some uneasy sensations, and which is called DISEASE. I say it is commonly attended with uneasiness, but not always; for many persons within a few hours, nay, a few minutes, of their death, have imagined themselves quite recovered and well. ”

“ How strange it is that a simple feeling of discomfort, impeded or heightened circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest! ”

“ Thus the surgeon and physician gradually form such habits that the sight of pain and suffering lead the mind to conception of modes of relief, whereas a mind not thus interested dwells on the more painful ideas.
The mind, also, can form a habit of inattention to our own bodily sufferings by becoming interested in other things, and thus painful sensations go unnoticed. Some persons will go for years with a chronic headache, and yet appear to enjoy nearly as much as those who never suffer from such a cause. ”

“ The special suffering which first arrests attention may suddenly arise, but this is always preceded, and for a considerable time, by sensible deviations from that equable and temperate performance of function which can alone constitute sound health. ”

“ Hence, when the mind, which animates the most robust and best organized body, is violently agitated by fright, rage, grief, vehement desire, or any other passion, whether sudden, or attended by long and painful sensations, the body manifestly suffers, and a variety of diseases, as apoplexy, palsy, madness, fever, and hysterics, may be the consequence. ”

“ In the progress of disease or exhaustion one may see in different patients every outward manifestation of mental deterioration, manifestations which, in a person who does not show any other sign of physical disease, mark him as insane. ”

“ A still more compound temperament is the melancholic, in which disease is added to the bilious temperament, a derangement of the functions of the nervous system, and the diseased obstruction of some one of the organs of the abdomen, so that the nutritive functions are feebly or irregularly performed, the bowels sluggish, the pulse hard and contracted, the excretions difficult, the imagination gloomy, the disposition suspicious. ”

“ So great is the influence of the imagination on the nervous, vascular, and muscular systems, as has already been shown, that it would be no more than probable that obstructions, causing pain and sickness, should in some instances be removed, and lay a foundation for recovery. ”

“ Exaggeration of Sensitiveness.—The most striking feature of this is the tendency to exaggerate the meaning of physical symptoms which they have often borne with for a good while without much inconvenience, but which now appeal to them as of serious significance. Any uncomfortable feeling is likely to be dwelt on to such an extent as to be called an unbearable ache or even an excruciating pain, and the patient is prone to connect it with some serious pathological process in the region in which it is felt. ”

“ Why a new disorder expelled the old one in a marvelous manner; as it is accustomed to do, when the pain of the afflicted side, or the head, is turned upon the stomach; as it is with a man in a lethargy, when he turns boxer, and attacks his physician. ”

“ I question our right even to suppose a state of pain in the Absolute.
And this doubt becomes more grave when we consider another point. When we pass from the conditions to the effects of painful feeling, we are on surer ground. For in our experience the result of pain is disquietude and unrest. ”

“ And again, when sickness is to be cured, he tries to subdue the demons of disease—to neutralise their action or to entice them out of the body of the patient—by imitating in pantomime the symptoms of the particular complaint. ”

“ A person, for instance, experiences a sudden fright. Time passes, the fright is completely forgotten, or, at most, vaguely remembered. But one day unmistakable, and sometimes exceedingly peculiar, symptoms of disease appear. The victim, it may be, suffers from a strange obsession or “fixed idea,” or from a general “nervous breakdown,” or from an actual paralysis of some bodily organ, or from the development of abdominal or other enlargements resembling true organic growths. ”

“ By a line of humorous reflection already suggested, we may in all cases of worry and moral disturbance reach the consolatory idea that the trouble has, in the first view of it, been grossly exaggerated. At the moment when the sensitive tissue is lacerated the shock of pain blinds us to dimensions; our disappointment fills the outlook, like a thunder-storm. The healthy nervous organism will show its vitality in the rapidity of the recuperative process ”

“ Whatever else weakens and exhausts the body, renders it also more susceptible of noxious impressions. Under the head of weakening powers, I comprehend not only what empties the body of its fluids, such as loss of blood, or a diarrhœa, but intoxication, fatigue, fasting, watching, and certain affections of the mind, such as care and grief. ”

“ For neither the absence of all symptoms of physical or of clearly mental disease, nor the presence of an astounding frequency, abruptness, and completeness of change in the psycho-physical actions and functions of the living person, nor, above all, the conjunction of these two peculiarities, are for us now, taken by themselves, anything but indications of nervous, hysterical derangement. ”

“ Humanity is awakening to the fact that sickness, in a large percentage of cases, is an error—of body and mind. Ignorance of the injurious effects of wrong foods, drinks, habits and methods is gradually being overcome. ”

“ You are recovering from a dangerous illness, and are not fit for any excitement. On the other hand, it is possible that the worry of mind, while waiting for strength, will do you equal harm; so I will make a compromise. Your pulse is pretty steady. You may have as many papers as you please brought here, where Miss Annie can help you search, if you will promise to stop at once if you feel tired, take one of those sweet-tasting pills, and go to bed. ”

“ Even when she is sitting down her body moves in a manner that is almost convulsive. I am beginning to think that the strain from which she suffered is bringing on some nervous disease, and I am really alarmed. ”

“ The mental weakness which disease occasions, is often exhibited to the physician under affecting circumstances. Minds that have been able to grasp the most difficult and abstruse subjects return, in the debility of sickness, to the simplest ideas—those which are both common and precious to the child, the man, the angel, and to God himself. ”