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Page 24
It is, however, only for the establishment of a principle that it could
be necessary to discuss the duties involved in such rare emergencies. I
shall therefore proceed without further delay to the more common
sacrifices of which I have spoken, and explain to you what I mean by
such sacrifices.
I have alluded to those of health and happiness. We have all known the
first wilfully thrown away by needless attendance on such sick friends
as would have been equally well taken care of had servants or hired
nurses shared in the otherwise overpowering labour. Often is this labour
found to incapacitate the nurse-tending friend for fulfilling towards
the convalescent those offices in which no menial could supply her place
--such as the cheering of the drooping spirit, the selection and patient
perusal of amusing books, an animated, amusing companionship in their
walks and drives, the humouring of their sick fancy--a sickness that
often increases as that of the body decreases. For all these trying
duties, during the often long and always painfully tedious period of
convalescence, the nightly watcher of the sick-bed has, it is most
likely, unfitted herself. The affection and devotion which were useless
and unheeded during days and nights of stupor and delirium have probably
by this time worn out the weak body which they have been exciting to
efforts beyond its strength, so that it is now incapable of more useful
demonstrations of attachment. Far be it from me to depreciate that fond,
devoted watching of love, which is sometimes even a compensation to the
invalid for the sufferings of sickness, at periods, too, when hired
attendance could not be tolerated. Here woman's love and devotion are
often brightly shown. The natural impulses of her heart lead her to
trample under foot all consideration of personal danger, fatigue, or
weakness, when the need of her loved ones demands her exertions.
This, however, is comparatively easy; it is only following the instincts
of her loving nature never to leave the sick room, where all her
anxiety, all her hopes and fears are centred,--never to breathe the
fresh air of heaven,--never to mingle in the social circle,--never to
rest the weary limbs, or close the languid eye. The excitement of love
and anxiety makes all this easy as long as the anxiety itself lasts: but
when danger is removed, and the more trying duties of tending the
convalescent begin, the genuine devotion of self-denial and
unselfishness is put to the test.
Nothing is more difficult than to bear with patience the apparently
unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish
convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long
bodily exhaustion. Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions
for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless,
or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who
have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know
how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself. How deeply she
often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without
power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds in secret over
those acts of neglect and words of unkindness her own ill-humour and
apparent ingratitude have unintentionally provoked.
Those who feel the sympathy of experience will surely wish, under all
such circumstances, to exercise untiring patience and unremitting
attention; but, however strong this wish may be, they cannot execute
their purpose if their own health has been injured by previous
unnecessary watchings, by exclusion from fresh air and exercise. Those
whose nervous system has been thus unstrung will never be equal to the
painful exertion which the recovering invalid now requires. How much
better it would have been for her if walks and sleep had been taken at
times when an attentive nurse would have done just as well to sit at the
bedside, when absence would have been unnoticed, or only temporarily
regretted! This prudent, and, we must remember, generally self-denying
care of one's self, would have averted the future bodily illness or
nervous depression of the nurse of the convalescent, at a time too when
the latter has become painfully alive to every look and word, as well as
act, of diminished attention and watchfulness; you will surely feel
deep self-reproach if, from any cause, you are unable to control your
own temper, and to bear with cheerful patience the petulance of hers.
I have dwelt so long on this part of my subject, because I think it very
probable that, with your warm affections, and before your selfishness
has been hardened by habits of self-indulgence, you might some time or
other fall into the error I have been describing. In the ardour of your
anxiety for some beloved relative, you may be induced to persevere in
such close attendance on the sick-bed as may seriously injure your own
health, and unfit you for more useful, and certainly more self-denying
exertion afterwards. How much easier is it to spend days and nights by
the sick-bed of one from whom we are in hourly dread of a final
separation, whose helpless and suffering state excites the strongest
feelings of compassion and anxiety, than to sit by the sofa, or walk by
the side, of the same invalid when she has regained just sufficient
strength to experience discomfort in every thing;--when she never finds
her sofa arranged or placed to her satisfaction; is never pleased with
the carriage, or the drive, or the walk you have chosen; is never
interested in the book or the conversation with which you anxiously and
laboriously try to amuse her. Here it is that woman's power of
endurance, that the real strength and nobleness of her character is put
to the most difficult test. Well, too, has this test been borne: right
womanly has been the conduct of many a loving wife, mother, and sister,
under the trying circumstances above described. Woman alone, perhaps,
can steadily maintain the clear vision of what the beloved one really
is, and can patiently view the wearisome ebullitions of ill-temper and
discontent as symptoms equally physical with a cough or a hectic flush.
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