, 1877-06-29
Health and Temper.

The Saturday Rerie1o says: Bad health
and good health have obviously strong
influence on the formation of character,
and vet it is always impossible to say Il
priort how either will act on any given
individual. Thus it seems easy for a
large, eupeptic, and jolly-looking man to
have a good temper. The wind that beats
the mountain blows more gently about
his large curves. 1t visits with a sharper
inquisition the meagre angles of lean
and physically ill-conditiOned person,
and it is not surprising if the former is
comfortable and happy while the latter is
exasperated and peevish. A large man
can endure more fatigue before his ener
gy droops to that lauguid state in which
all the wheels of being are slow, and the
body and mind resent every sort of con-
tact, everything that forces exertion on
them. But the favored of nature in health
are apt to degenerate in character by rea-
son of a physical pride like the "intellec-
tusl pride" which preachers speak of, and
which, according to one famous liberal
theologian, is purely mythical and i'm
aginary sin. Physical pride is only too
lCdl a lhAlluSg anu OdueCo OhAJ wv
unhappine,s in families. The healthy
member, who is a great eater of beet, has
merged his imagination and his sympa-
thies in atyraHnical robustness. Though
he would be the first to blame the moral
Pharisee who should declare that he had
never slipped from righteousness, the ply
sical Pharisee is eternally Dragging that
be never was wearied out. He may think
that the hero talked too largely who de-
clared that he did not know what fear
was like, but for himself he insists that
be does not know what fatigue is like.
Thus the result of his natural gifts is
certain hardness and cruelty. He opines
that boys should trough il" and is an ad-
vocate of tagging and bullying. The
healthy tyrant is all for hardening every
one, and he revives the cold-water torture
of the theological past for the benefit of
his more delicate children. The express
sion which be uses most frequently is,
Nerves, all nonsense; look at me, and
then he bores his audience with the re-
cital of some cruelty that he practiced
or endured in his youth. 1t is question
whether it is better for family to fall in
to the hands of the healthy or the ner-
vous and debilitated tyrant. For the lat
ter, bad as has been the influence of his
health on his character, some excuse may
be made. He does deserve pity for hav-
ing drifted into that state which the
Scotch idiom describes as "all egg g-shells." :"
A sudden noise, an inoPportune inteIrup-
ton, painful story affects some people
with physical shock which the robust
world knows nothing of. There are mo-
ments of languor, apart from actual suf-
fering, In which every sensation is mod
ified anguish. A family which walked
in list slippers, which never played games,
which possessed no piano, and lived far
remote from street cries and railway
whistles would yet be too noisy company
for the man or woman who has yielded
10 the struggle and left character at the
mercy of nerves. When there are such
people in house it is impossible for any
one to do anything rightly. The game
begins in the morning, when it is discov-
cred that the neighbor's dog or 3 distant
barn-door fowl kept the dear sufferer
awake. He comes down late to breakfast
and finds breakfast cold, and some one
else has read the newspaper before him,
and there is talk of party of pleasure,
against which he RACES peevishly. Every
one, he prophesies, will get wet, will
catch cold and die, and really some of
the audience may come to think such a
fate fortunate release. The vanquished
character, the member of family, or of
a society who has given up fighting for
cheerfulness, and who lets his physical
depression have its own way, is not only
wTetched himself, but cause of wretch
edness to others. People grow up in his
bsleful shade, as it were under a moral
upas tree, and through all their lives re-
tain trace of his keen sensitiveness To
annoyance, and his angry resentment of
the pin pricks of daily existence.
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