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