LETTER XII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF Lake of Como. My dear Tom,--Though I begin this to-day, it may be it will take me to the end of the week to finish it, for I am still very weak, and my ideas come sometimes too quick and sometimes too slow, and, like an ill-ordered procession, stop the road, and make confusion everywhere. Mary Anne has told you how I have been ill, and for both our sakes, I 'll say little more about it. One remark, however, I will make, and it is this: that of all the good qualities we ascribe to home, there is one unquestionably pre-eminent,--"it is the very best place to be sick in." The monotony and sameness so wearisome in health are boons to the sick man. The old familiar faces are all dear to him; the well-known voices do not disturb him; the little gleam of light that steals in between the curtains checkers some accustomed spot in the room that he has watched on many a former sick-bed. The stray words he catches are of home and homely topics. In a word, he is the centre of a little world, all anxious and eager about him, and even the old watchdog subdues his growl out of deference to his comfort. Now, though I am all gratitude for the affection and kindness of every one around me, I missed twenty things I could have had at Dodsborough, not one of them worth a brass farthing in reality, but priceless in the estimation of that peevish, fretful habit that grows out of a sick-bed. It was such a comfort to me to know how Miles Dogherty passed the night, and to learn whether he got a little sleep towards morning, as I did, and what the doctor thought of him. Then I liked to hear all the adventures of Joe Barret, when he "went in" for the leeches, how the mare threw him, and left him to scramble home on his feet. Then I revelled in all that petty tyranny illness admits of, but which is only practicable amongst one's own people, refusing this, and insisting on that, just to exercise the little despotism that none rebel against, but which declines into a mixed monarchy on the first day you eat chicken-broth, and from which you are utterly deposed when you can dine at table. In good truth, Tom, I don't wonder at men becoming _malades imaginaires_, seeing the unnatural importance they attain to by a life of complaining, and days passed in self-commiseration and sorrow. In place of all this, think of a foreign country and a foreign doctor; fancy yourself interrogated about your feelings in a language of which you scarcely know a word, and are conscious that a wrong tense in your verb may be your death-warrant. Imagine yourself endeavoring, through the flighty visions of a wandering intellect, to find out the subjunctive mood or the past participle, and almost forgetting the torment of your gout in the terrors of your grammar!