FOR A FIT OF PASSION.—Walk out in the open air. You may speak your mind to the winds without hurting any one, or proclaiming yourself to be a simpleton. “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.” FOR A FIT OF IDLENESS.—Count the tickings of a clock. Do this for one hour, and you will be glad to pull off your coat the next, and work like a man. “Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.” FOR A FIT OF EXTRAVAGANCE AND FOLLY.—Go to the workhouse, or speak with the ragged and wretched inmates of a jail, and you will be convinced Who makes his bread of briar and thorn
Must be content to lie forlorn.
“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not?” FOR A FIT OF AMBITION.—Go to the churchyard and read the gravestones. They will tell you the end of man at his best estate. “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away.” “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” FOR A FIT OF REPINING.—Look about for the halt and the blind, and visit the bedridden, the afflicted, and the deranged, and they will make you ashamed of complaining of your light afflictions. “Wherefore doth a living man complain?” FOR A FIT OF ENVY.—Go and see how many who keep their carriages are afflicted with rheumatism, gout, and dropsy; how many walk abroad on crutches or stay at home wrapped up in a flannel, and how many are subject to epilepsy and apoplexy. “A sound heart is the life of the flesh. Envy is the rottenness of the bones.”