of nervous matter is always going on, and more
quickly with the sick than with the well,--that to obtrude another
thought upon the brain whilst it is in the act of destroying nervous
matter by thinking, is calling upon it to make a new exertion--if we
consider these things, which are facts, not fancies, we shall remember
that we are doing positive injury by interrupting, by startling a
'fanciful' person, as it is called. Alas, it is no fancy.

"If the invalid is forced by his avocations to continue occupations
requiring much thinking, the injury is doubly great. In feeding a
patient suffering under delirium or stupor you may suffocate him by
giving him his food suddenly, but if you rub his lips gently with a
spoon and thus attract his attention, he will swallow the food
unconsciously, but with perfect safety. Thus it is with the brain. If
you offer it a thought, especially one requiring a decision, abruptly,
you do it a real, not fanciful, injury. Never speak to a sick person
suddenly; but, at the same time, do not keep his expectation on the
tiptoe."

To this you will already have answered, mentally, that you are not a
patient suffering under either delirium or stupor, and that nobody
needs to rub your lips gently with a spoon. But Miss Nightingale does
not consider interruption baneful to sick persons only.

"This rule indeed," she continues, "applies to the well quite as much as
to the sick. _I have never known persons who exposed themselves for
years to constant interruption who did not muddle away their intellects
by it at last._ The process, with them, may be accomplished without
pain. With the sick, pain gives warning of the injury."

Interruption is an evil to the reader which must be estimated very
differently from ordinary business interruptions. The great question
about interruption is not whether it compels you to divert your
attention to other facts, but whether it compels you to tune your whole
mind to another diapason. Shopkeepers are incessantly compelled to
change the subject; a stationer is asked for notepaper one minute, for
sealing-wax the next, and immediately afterwards for a particular sort
of steel pen. The subjects of his thoughts are changed very rapidly, but
the general state of his mind is not changed; he is always strictly in
his shop, as much mentally as physically. When an attorney is
interrupted in the study of a case by the arrival of a client who asks
him questions about another cas