uses
of distress, you would take more pains about all these things. An infant
laid upon the sick bed will do the sick person, thus suffering, more
good than all your logic. A piece of good news will do the same. Perhaps
you are afraid of "disturbing" him. You say there is no comfort for his
present cause of affliction. It is perfectly reasonable. The distinction
is this, if he is obliged to act, do not "disturb" him with another
subject of thought just yet; help him to do what he wants to do; but, if
he _has_ done this, or if nothing _can_ be done, then "disturb" him by
all means. You will relieve, more effectually, unreasonable suffering
from reasonable causes by telling him "the news," showing him "the
baby," or giving him something new to think of or to look at than by all
the logic in the world.

It has been very justly said that the sick are like children in this,
that there is no _proportion_ in events to them. Now it is your business
as their visitor to restore this right proportion for them--to show them
what the rest of the world is doing. How can they find it out otherwise?
You will find them far more open to conviction than children in this.
And you will find that their unreasonable intensity of suffering from
unkindness, from want of sympathy, &c., will disappear with their
freshened interest in the big world's events. But then you must be able
to give them real interests, not gossip.

[Sidenote: Two new classes of patients peculiar to this generation.]

NOTE.--There are two classes of patients which are unfortunately
becoming more common every day, especially among women of the richer
orders, to whom all these remarks are pre-eminently inapplicable. 1.
Those who make health an excuse for doing nothing, and at the same time
allege that the being able to do nothing is their only grief. 2. Those
who have brought upon themselves ill-health by over pursuit of
amusement, which they and their friends have most unhappily called
intellectual activity. I scarcely know a greater injury that can be
inflicted than the advice too often given to the first class to
"vegetate"--or than the admiration too often bestowed on the latter
class for "pluck."

FOOTNOTES:

[1]
[Sidenote: Absurd statistical comparisons made in common conversation by
the most sensible people for the benefit of the sick.]

There are, of course, cases, as in first confinements, when an assurance
from the doctor or experienced nurse to the fr