[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 your advice when you can know nothing about the truth, and admit you could not inquire into it.

To nurses I say—­these are the visitors who do your patient harm.  When you hear him told:—­1.  That he has nothing the matter with him, and that he wants cheering. 2.  That he is committing suicide, and that he wants preventing. 3.  That he is the tool of somebody who makes use of him for a purpose. 4.  That he will listen to nobody, but is obstinately bent upon his own way; and 5.  That he ought to be called to the sense of duty, and is flying in the face of Providence;—­then know that your patient is receiving all the injury that he can receive from a visitor.

How little the real sufferings of illness are known or understood.  How little does any one in good health fancy him or even herself into the life of a sick person.

[Sidenote:  Means of giving pleasure to the sick.]