heart of an invalid to learn, by chance, that children count the days and hours till they may come, and that all their gravity is about having to go away. It is the most refined flattery to let one know it: and the knowledge of it may well be almost a specific against ill-temper. And then again, the nurse. It is by no means sufficient for one’s comfort that one’s nurse should be well qualified,--ever so trust-worthy, and ever so kind: it is necessary too that she should be free and happy. There must be no fear in her tread,--no reserve in her eye,--no management in her voice--no choice in her tidings. There is no ill-temper in that jealousy of the invalid’s spirit which requires assurance of being no burden, and no restraint. It is a righteous jealousy, and among the most effectual safeguards against the indulgence of ill-humour. That there are disorders, and seasons of illness, which almost compel the forfeiture of the mental and moral freedom and ease of the sick-room, is a painful truth; and those who suffer under such irresistible or unresisted irritation are supremely to be compassionated, whether their actual pain of body be more or less. But it is quite as certain that a large number of sufferers are exempt from temptation to this kind of failure, being subject, the while, to some other,--more tolerable, as affecting only, or chiefly, their own happiness. The very opposite failure to that of irritability,--which shows itself in dissatisfaction with others,--is no less common,--unreasonable dissatisfaction with one’s self. This lowering, depraving tendency to self-contempt requires for its establishment as a fault of temper, long protraction or permanence of illness: but when once established, it is as serious a fault of temper as can be entertained. Where religious faith and trust are insufficient for the need, this temper is almost a necessary consequence of any degree of mental and moral activity in a sick prisoner. The retrospect of one’s own life, from the stillness of the sick room, is unendurable to any considerate person, except in the light of the deepest religious humility; and the strongest faith in the all-wise ordering of the moral world, is no more than sufficient to counteract that sickening which spreads from the distressed body to the anxious heart, when intervals of ease and lightness are few and brief. When to the pains and misgivings of such perpetual retrospect are added the burdens of a sense of present and permanent uselessness, and of overwhelming gratitude for services received from hour to hour,--there is no self-respect in the world that will, unaided, support cheerfulness and equanimity.