No pleasure can compensate for acute and long-endured suffering; but in all eases of illness unattended by pain, the pleasure to be derived is considerably greater than might be imagined. In fact, no one ever thinks of being able to enjoy an illness, for which reason we shall endeavor to show our readers not only the practicability of the idea, but how they are to set about realizing it. Let us take the most common kind of malady there is unattended by actual pain, a cold; a cold all over you, as violent as you please—such, in fact, as is “not to be sneezed at,” one that will confine you to your bed, compel you to take medicine, and restrict you to broth and barley-water. There you are, then, ill; happy fellow! very ill! you have not the least conception how much you are to be envied. The mere fact of being in such a condition, renders you an object of anxiety and interest. Every body in the house is ready to wait upon you, and all you have to do is to lie still and enjoy your bed, while other people are bustling about the house, or out of doors all day, undergoing the fatigue and irksomeness of their ordinary avocations. You are ill—you are to do nothing—not even to get up to breakfast, but to have it brought to you in bed; a luxury which it is probable you may have often been tempted to enjoy in the winter, though your philosophy enabled you to overcome it. Now you are not only compelled to indulge in it, but are made an object of sympathy on that account; it is so very lamentable to see you propped up with pillows, and cosily encased in flannel around the throat and shoulders. You are not to be hurried over your breakfast, there is no office to go to; nothing to be thought of but the enjoyment of your tea and toast, which you may sip and munch as leisurely as you please, while reading a magazine or newspaper. At length breakfast is over, and you have become tired of reading; down go the pillows to their usual position, and after some gentle hand has smoothed and placed them comfortably, you sink back upon them, overwhelmed by a most delightful sense of mental and bodily indolence. What a blessing it is to have escaped the ordeal of shaving, even for one morning! only think of that; and remember also how the warmth of the bed will encourage the growth of your beard, compelling you of course to send for the barber when you have got well enough to leave your room again. Hark! there’s a knock at the door—somebody you don’t want to see, probably; “Master’s very poorly, and obliged to keep his bed.” Ha! ha! Keep his bed, eh?—no such thing; it’s the bed that keeps him—snug and warm, and in a blessed state of exemption from all annoyances, and you must not be subjected to any such infliction; no, you are very ill. You abandon yourself to the idea, nestle your head luxuriously in the pillow, pull the bed clothes over your chin, and fall into a delightful dose. You awake feverish, perhaps, and thirsty. Well,