Ill

“ The man who does ill, ill must suffer too. ”

“ It is not your fault; you are ill. And the name of your illness is:
FANCY.
It is a worm that gnaws black wrinkles on one’s forehead. ”

“ Whether they were right or wrong in this conjecture, certain it is that minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by remedies in themselves very nauseous and unpalatable. ”

“ As we read the last clause, it intimates how ill this covetous worldling can bear the common and unavoidable calamities of human life. When he is in health he eats in darkness, always dull with care and fear about what he has; but, if he be sick, he has much sorrow and wrath with his sickness ”

“ Illness means that the order of the home life must be seriously disturbed. Consideration for the one who is ill, and effort to alleviate the suffering, should take the place of every other thought and ambition. ”

“ Why truly not well, ill, very ill, in an unhappy, unprosperous, unfavourable, bad, adverse, unlucky, feeble, dubious, indifferent, State of Health, not at all as I would, a tolerable, such as I would not wish even to my Enemies. ”

“ (For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?) ”

“ From pain and from sensual pleasure spring fear, cupidity and the other passions that are ordinarily serviceable, although it may accidentally happen that they sometimes turn towards ill: one must say as much of poisons, epidemic diseases and other hurtful things, namely that these are indispensable consequences of a well-conceived system. ”

“ But illness, appearing to be but the ghastly vehicle of death, clothed in such fearful pain that no control, even of reason and strong will, can check its agonized expression, till at last, reason itself succumbs beneath it, and bears the mind from the tortured frame, this is a trial of no ordinary suffering, even when such illness has been brought about by what may be termed natural causes. ”

“ To be sure, our souls are sick, and of themselves can't keep 'ever on the wing,' but I have had some delightful thoughts of late from just hearing the title of a book, 'God's method with the maladies of the soul.' It gives one such a conception of the seeming ills of life; to think of Him as our Physician, the ills all remedies, the deprivations only a wholesome regimen, the losses all gains. ”

“ Illness, always illness! Pale faces, disordered nerves, dyspepsia, melancholia, anæmia, all the troop of ills that afflict humanity, marching for ever into his room! What company for a man to keep! What company! ”

“ Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; ”

“ Every physician knows that physical maladies are daily produced or aggravated in individuals by their disorders of mind and life; as by self-indulgence and intemperance, but, what is still more striking, by the immediate operation of evil passions. ”

“ In these extreme cases, no one can deny that what we call the badness of actions is ascribed to them solely for the reason that they entail pain, immediate or remote, and would not be so ascribed did they entail pleasure.
If we examine our conceptions on their obverse side, this general fact forces itself on our attention with equal distinctness. Imagine that ministering to a sick person always increased the pains of illness. ”

“ So that 145from these points of view it is worse to be diseased in mind than body, for the latter only suffer, but the former do ill as well as suffer ill. But why need I speak of our various passions? ”

“ Let them remember that sickness will come again, even a sickness which will have no cure. And, 4. Let them bethink themselves, how terribly conscience will be wounded, and their souls dismayed, when the next sickness cometh, to remember that they were unthankful for their last recovery, and how falsely they dealt with God in the breaking of their promises. ”

“ I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness—a real thorough-going illness. ”

“ Cheer the sick by words of encouragement, and the hold on life will be strengthened; discourage, by uttering such expressions as, "How bad you look!" "Why, how you have failed since I saw you last!" "I would have another doctor; one who knows something!" "You can't live long if you don't get help!" etc., and the tie which binds them to earth is snapped asunder. The visitor becomes a murderer! ”

“ Plays might succeed or fail, and it made little difference, but illness was another matter—illness was something definite and material. Illness could neither be talked away by religion nor denied by philosophy. ”

“ Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally without distinction. ”

“ To what extent, or in how many cases, what is called illness is due to moral springs having been used amiss,—whether by being over-used or by not being used sufficiently,—we hardly at all know, and we far too little inquire. ”

“ The sufferings of these gentlemen simply annoy you. Your illness is within yourself. Your nerves are over-excited by the continual struggle that is going on within you, and the state of hesitation and uncertainty in which you are living. ”

“ Diseases, and, in time, constant ill Health being the almost never failing Effects of a lasting Discontent upon such feeble Constitutions. But I take leave to say, that the fault of those who make others thus miserable, and the weakness of such who thus suffer their Minds to think under Adversity, are in a great measure both owing to one and the same Cause, viz. ”

“ He will see the healthy taken, and the sickly left. If, then, it be disease, and whether mental or bodily, such disease and its causes must be latent indeed; and we confess we look for no 'coming man' who is to solve the mystery. ”

“ In conclusion, I would remind you, that it may, some time or other, be the will of God to afflict you with heavy and permanent sickness, habitually affecting your temper, generating despondency, impatience, and irritation, and making the whole mind, as it were, one vast sore, shrinking in agony from every touch. ”

“ and yet I will write it, — that there is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans. ”

“ Our ills are worse than at their ease
These blameless happy souls suspect,
They only study the disease,
Alas, who live not to detect. ”

“ The traces of illness are yet upon thee and haply thou art going among folk who be mighty talkers, men who commune together of what concerneth them not; or there may be amongst them some forward fellow who will split thy head, and thou half thy size from sickness. ”

“ If any one, then, at his leisure gather together out of the whole of Scripture all the enumerations of diseases which in the threatenings addressed to sinners are called by the names of bodily maladies, he will find that either the vices of souls, or their punishments, are figuratively indicated by them. ”

“ No truly, I am young, healthful, and strong; the blood flows freely in my veins; my limbs obey my will; I am robust in mind and body, constituted for a long life. Yes, all this is true; and yet, nevertheless, I have an illness, a fatal illness,—an illness given by the hand of man!{254}
Since I came out of the Infirmary a vivid idea has occupied me,—a thought which affects me to madness; ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fourthly, He comes on with a softer plea of infirmity, and endeavours to persuade men that they may yield under pretence of being forced, and that their strivings and reluctances will lessen the evil to an apparent sin of infirmity ”

“ When we have recovered from dangerous illness there is an error into which our earth-bound minds are apt to fall. This is entertaining our friends, with every symptom and variation of our malady, instead of the praise of our great physician. ”

“ Should it be said that evil results of such kinds are proved to occur only when the pains, bodily or mental, are great, the reply is that in healthy persons the injurious perturbations caused by small pains, though not easily traced, are still produced ”

“ From this miserable condition I desire to protect you, and I would ask you to {528} take this advice deeply to heart: do not bear yourself as one who is condemned; as one who, affected by a progressive, incurable disease, will soon fall a victim to paralysis. ”

“ When sufferings and troubles assume a virulent aspect, and resist all the efforts of medical skill, they are infirmities indeed, and a silence the most absolute and rigorous with respect to them, should be observed. ”

“ Kill not for food, and where Necessity Demands the sacrifice of sentient life, Kill with all kindness and with due regard To Physical—and Mental—feelings. Pain Is a nerve-racking, dread experience, Especially unto the dumb Creation, Who cannot question, yet are forced to bear That dread experience, all unwillingly. ”

“ My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by myself by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the time to be wrong. Had I died, it would have been self-destruction. ”

“ The body becomes inert and languid, with a sense of illness pervading the frame; the mind is haunted by apprehension of evil, and is disturbed by a nervous 190restlessness and irritability of the most distressing kind. ”

“ If any one in his early youth has experienced some slight symptoms of the malady under discussion, which his constitution, through a tough struggle with the world, and a busy training in after life, has been enabled to throw off, he will yet look back with fond associations to the scenes of his dangerous indulgence. ”

“ we should every night call ourselves to account, “What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired?” Our vices will abate of themselves, if they be brought every day to the shrift. ”

“ If there's any illness for which people offer many remedies, you may be sure that particular illness is incurable, I think. ”

“ Sickness Mind destroys all ills is a belief, which must be annihilated by the divine Mind. ”

“ It is incredible that such things should happen, but in the confusion caused by a sudden and severe illness, untidy and careless habits are apt to come to the surface, and loom largely as aggressive faults. ”