It
was possible that her malady was incurable (for I had heard enough to
convince me that her dipsomania was only a pretence and that she was
temperate in all her habits); in that case she might perhaps be justly
subject to annoyances or even to restraint; but who could say whether she
was curable or not, until she was able to make a clean breast of her
symptoms instead of concealing them? In their eagerness to stamp out
disease, these people overshot their mark; for people had become so
clever at dissembling--they painted their faces with such consummate
skill--they repaired the decay of time and the effects of mischance with
such profound dissimulation--that it was really impossible to say whether
any one was well or ill till after an intimate acquaintance of months or
years. Even then the shrewdest were constantly mistaken in their
judgements, and marriages were often contracted with most deplorable
results, owing to the art with which infirmity had been concealed.
It appeared to me that the first step towards the cure of disease should
be the announcement of the fact to a person's near relations and friends.
If any one had a headache, he ought to be permitted within reasonable
limits to say so at once, and to retire to his own bedroom and take a
pill, without every one's looking grave and tears being shed and all the
rest of it.
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