their faces, they are sent immediately to make themselves clean.
If they soil their clothes, they are shut up until reduced to a
proper state of penitence. They are kept out of all draughts of
air for fear of a cold; and if they should take cold, why, they
must take medicine of the most repulsive character as a penalty.
If they cough out of the wrong corner of their mouths, she
suspects them of croupy intentions; and if they venture, at some
unguarded moment, on a cutaneous eruption, they are immediately
charged with the measles, or accused of small-pox. If they quietly
sit down for a moment of repose, she apprehends sickness, and
stirs them about to shake it off. Even sleep is not sacred to her,
for if she finds a flushed face among the harassed little
slumberers, she wakes its owner to make affectionate inquiries.
Her husband, as I have already stated, died two years ago. She
worked upon his nervous system to such an extent that he was glad
to be rid of the world, and of her. I think a man would die, after
awhile, with constantly looking at the motion of a saw-mill. The
jar of a locomotive makes the toughest iron brittle at last; and
the wear and tear of a restless wife are beyond the strongest
man's endurance.

I have noticed that persons who have influence upon the minds of
others, maintain constantly a degree of repose. I do not mean that
those have most influence who use their powers sparingly, but that
a certain degree of mental repose--or what may possibly be called
imperturbableness--is necessary to influence. Mrs. Flutter Budget
always talks in a hurry, and talks of a thousand things, and is
easily excited. Her neighbor, carefully avoiding the causes which
ruffle her, and preserving the poise of her faculties, insists on
her point quietly, and carries it. The repose of equanimity is a