Hence, though they conceal ill health by every kind of cunning, they are
quite open about even the most flagrant mental diseases, should they
happen to exist, which to do the people justice is not often. Indeed,
there are some who, so to speak, are spiritual valetudinarians, and who
make themselves exceedingly ridiculous by their nervous supposition that
they are wicked, while they are very tolerable people all the time. This
however is exceptional; and on the whole they use much the same reserve
or unreserve about the state of their moral welfare as we do about our
health.
It has followed that all the ordinary greetings among ourselves, such as,
How do you do? and the like, are considered signs of gross ill-breeding;
nor do the politer classes tolerate even such a common complimentary
remark as telling a man that he was looking well. They salute each other
with, "I hope you are good this morning;" or "I hope you have recovered
from the snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;"
and if the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, he
says so, and is condoled with accordingly. Nay, the straighteners have
gone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as taught at
the Colleges of Unreason) to all known forms of mental indisposition, and
have classified them according to a system of their own, which, though I
could not understand it, seemed to work well in practice, for they are
always able to tell a man what is the matter with him as soon as they
have heard his story, and their familiarity with the long names assures
him that they thoroughly understand his case.
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