t that they know nothing of,--he is fatigued instead of
"cheered," and his attention is fixed upon himself. In general, patients
who are really ill, do not want to talk about themselves. Hypochondriacs
do, but again I say we are not on the subject of hypochondriacs.

[Sidenote: Absurd consolations put forth for the benefit of the sick.]

If, on the other hand, and which is much more frequently the case, the
patient says nothing but the Shakespearian "Oh!" "Ah!" "Go to!" and "In
good sooth!" in order to escape from the conversation about himself the
sooner, he is depressed by want of sympathy. He feels isolated in the
midst of friends. He feels what a convenience it would be, if there were
any single person to whom he could speak simply and openly, without
pulling the string upon himself of this shower-bath of silly hopes and
encouragements; to whom he could express his wishes and directions
without that person persisting in saying, "I hope that it will please
God yet to give you twenty years," or, "You have a long life of activity
before you." How often we see at the end of biographies or of cases
recorded in medical papers, "after a long illness A. died rather
suddenly," or, "unexpectedly both to himself and to others."
"Unexpectedly" to others, perhaps, who did not see, because they did not
look; but by no means "unexpectedly to himself," as I feel entitled to
believe, both from the internal evidence in such stories, and from
watching similar cases; there was every reason to expect that A. would
die, and he knew it; but he found it useless to insist upon his own
knowledge to his friends.

In these remarks I am alluding neither to acute cases which terminate
rapidly nor to "nervous" cases.

By the first much interest in, their own danger is very rarely felt. In
writings of fiction, whether novels or biographies, these death-beds are
generally depicted as almost seraphic in lucidity of intelligence. Sadly
large has been my experience in death-beds, and I can only say that I
have seldom or never seen such. Indifference, excepting with regard to
bodily suffering, or to some duty the dying man desires to perform, is
the far more usual state.

The "nervous case," on the other hand, delights in figuring to himself
and others a fictitious danger.

But the long chronic case, who knows too well himself, and who has been
told by his physician that he will never enter active life again, who
feels that every month he has t