of these things, he is far better without that nurse than with her--
however valuable and handy her services may otherwise be to him, and
however incapable he may be of rendering them to himself.


[Sidenote: Reading aloud.]

With regard to reading aloud in the sick room, my experience is, that
when the sick are too ill to read to themselves, they can seldom bear to
be read to. Children, eye-patients, and uneducated persons are
exceptions, or where there is any mechanical difficulty in reading.
People who like to be read to, have generally not much the matter with
them; while in fevers, or where there is much irritability of brain, the
effort of listening to reading aloud has often brought on delirium. I
speak with great diffidence; because there is an almost universal
impression that it is _sparing_ the sick to read aloud to them. But two
things are certain:--


[Sidenote: Read aloud slowly, distinctly, and steadily to the sick.]

(1.) If there is some matter which _must_ be read to a sick person, do
it slowly. People often think that the way to get it over with least
fatigue to him is to get it over in least time. They gabble; they plunge
and gallop through the reading. There never was a greater mistake.
Houdin, the conjuror, says that the way to make a story seem short is to
tell it slowly. So it is with reading to the sick. I have often heard a
patient say to such a mistaken reader, "Don't read it to me; tell it
me."[4] Unconsciously he is aware that this will regulate the plunging,
the reading with unequal paces, slurring over one part, instead of