y the patient with recommendations to do something or other,
having just as little knowledge as to its being feasible, or even safe
for him, as if they were to recommend a man to take exercise, not
knowing he had broken his leg. What would the friend say, if _he_ were
the medical attendant, and if the patient, because some _other_ friend
had come in, because somebody, anybody, nobody, had recommended
something, anything, nothing, were to disregard _his_ orders, and take
that other body's recommendation? But people never think of this.

[Sidenote: Advisers the same now as two hundred years ago.]

A celebrated historical personage has related the commonplaces which,
when on the eve of executing a remarkable resolution, were showered in
nearly the same words by every one around successively for a period of
six months. To these the personage states that it was found least
trouble always to reply the same thing, viz., that it could not be
supposed that such a resolution had been taken without sufficient
previous consideration. To patients enduring every day for years from
every friend or acquaintance, either by letter or _viva voce_, some
torment of this kind, I would suggest the same answer. It would indeed
be spared, if such friends and acquaintances would but consider for one
moment, that it is probable the patient has heard such advice at least
fifty times before, and that, had it been practicable, it would have
been practised long ago. But of such consideration there appears to be
no chance. Strange, though true, that people should be just the same in
these things as they were a few hundred years ago!

To me these commonplaces, leaving their smear upon the cheerful,
single-hearted, constant devotion to duty, which is so often seen in the
decline of such sufferers, recall the slimy trail left by the snail on
the sunny southern garden-wall loaded with fruit.

[Sidenote: Mockery of the advice given to sick.]

No mockery in the world is so hollow as the advice showered upon the
sick. It is of no use for the sick to say anything, for what the adviser
wants is, _not_ to know the truth about the state of the patient, but to
turn whatever the sick may say to the support of his own argument, set
forth, it must be repeated, without any inquiry whatever into the
patient's real condition. "But it would be impertinent or indecent in me
to make such an inquiry," says the adviser. True; and how much more
impertinent is it to give