ss, a sentinel to mount guard;
and the conclusion is drawn that the people given up to the more serious
business of life are dedicated to labor, like the ox. Amusement is
incompatible with their activities. Pushing this view still further, we
think ourselves warranted in believing that the infirm, the afflicted,
the bankrupt, the vanquished in life's battle, and all those who carry
heavy burdens, are in the shade, like the northern slopes of mountains,
and that it is so of necessity. Whence the conclusion that serious
people have no need of pleasure, and that to offer it to them would be
unseemly; while as to the afflicted, there would be a lack of delicacy
in breaking the thread of their sad meditations. It seems therefore to
be understood that certain persons are condemned to be _always_ serious,
that we should approach them in a serious frame of mind, and talk to
them only of serious things: so, too, when we visit the sick or
unfortunate; we should leave our smiles at the door, compose our face
and manner to dolefulness, and talk of anything heartrending. Thus we
carry darkness to those in darkness, shade to those in shade. We
increase the isolation of solitary lives and the monotony of the dull
and sad. We wall up some existences as it were in dungeons; and because
the grass grows round their deserted prison-house, we speak low in
approaching it, as though it were a tomb. Who suspects the work of
infernal cruelty which is thus accomplished every day in the world! This
ought not to be.

When you find men or women whose lives are lost in hard tasks, or in the
painful office of seeking out human wretchedness and binding up wounds,
remember that they are beings made like you, that they have the same
wants, that there are hours when they need pleasure and diversion. You
will not turn them aside from their mission by making them laugh
occasionally--these people who see so many tears and griefs; on the
contrary, you will give them strength to go on the better with their
work.

And when people whom you know are in trial, do not draw a sanitary
cordon round them--as though they had the plague--that you cross only
with precautions which recall to them their sad lot. On the contrary,
after showing all your sympathy, all your respect for their grief,
comfort them, help them to take up life again; carry them a breath from
the out-of-doors--something in short to remind them that their
misfortune does not shut them off from the