"A sensible person, thus diseased, who has found out what ails him, will shut his mouth resolutely, not to give utterance to the dark thoughts that infest his soul.
"A lady of great brilliancy and wit, who was subject to these periods, once said to me, 'My dear sir, there are times when I know I am possessed of the Devil, and then I never let myself speak.' And so this wise woman carried her burden about with her in a determined, cheerful reticence, leaving always the impression of a cheery, kindly temper, when, if she had spoken out a tithe of what she thought and felt in her morbid hours, she would have driven all her friends from her, and made others as miserable as she was herself. She was a sunbeam, a life-giving presence in every family, by the power of self-knowledge and self-control."
Little Foxes, Harriet Beecher Stowe.
APRIL 2
"It would be very petty of us who are well and can bear things, to think much of small offences from those who carry a weight of trial."
George Eliot.
"Trouble is so hard to bear, is it not? How can we live and think that any one has trouble—piercing trouble—and we could help them and never try?"
George Eliot.
"Pity makes the world soft to the weak and noble for the strong."