HYSTERIA AND DEMONISM. 89 



a charming disposition, was docile and amiable, is wholly changed 

 to-day. She will not endure the least observation, is discontented 

 with everything, has a bad look for everybody, breaks all rules, and 

 is quite ungovernable. Her indocility is the more surprising, because 

 it arises suddenly without cause, and disappears in the same manner. 

 Self-love is always extravagantly developed. The most trifling pleas- 

 antry often becomes a cruel offense, to be borne with indignation, 

 which tears enough can not be shed to protest against. Everything 

 becomes the subject of a drama. Existence appears like a scene in 

 a theatre. The regular, quiet life of every-day routine is transformed 

 by the hysterical woman into a series of grave events, adapted to all 

 sorts of dramatic developments. The hysterical sufferers continually 

 play with an equal success at tragedy and comedy amid the flat scenes 

 of reality. They can not comprehend simplicity in life, but make life 

 a complication. Terror, jealousy, joy, anger, love, everything is ex- 

 aggerated out of proportion with the just and measured feelings 

 which are becoming. 



Every human being, I believe, is moved by two opposing forces, 

 sentiment and will. With the will we succeed (or think we succeed, 

 which amounts to the same thing) in taming the feelings, in silencing 

 the instinctive and passionate exuberance of the brute nature, we be- 

 come masters of ourselves, compos sui, as the ancients said. We know 

 that it is good to tell this, to conceal that, that there are noble senti- 

 ments and base passions, that we ought to obey the former and crush 

 the latter. Hysterical persons do not know this, they do not compre- 

 hend what is meant by the power of ruling the passions. Passion 

 leads them, and they suffer themselves to be carried where passion 

 takes them. If the wind of anger or jealousy blows, they give them- 

 selves up, without opposition, to anger or jealousy ; if it is the wind 

 of charity or obedience, they are charitable or obedient. If the fancy 

 to say what is impertinent or incongruous crosses their brain, the im- 

 pertinent or incongruous saying is uttered. They are somewhat like 

 persons who have taken hasheesh, and float off on the waves of fancy 

 or enthusiasm. 



We can never know how to depend on the feelings of an hysterical 

 person. Any attempt to forecast them would be rash, and we may 

 have equally good reasons to expect to find her well disposed or dis- 

 contented. Her feelings will be likewise of the most fleeting charac- 

 ter, and she will not imagine that it is necessary to establish transi- 

 tions between laughing and tears, anger and satisfaction. Her bad 

 humor will last while you turn an hour-glass, and she will behave like 

 children who burst out in laughing while the tears they have just shed 

 are still rolling down their cheeks. 



Notwithstanding this mobility, this irresistible spontaneity, the vic- 

 tims of hysteria are wholly wanting in sincerity. They are all more 

 or less liars ; not so much, perhaps, that they are ready to tell selfish 



